Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)(19)

“What are you thinking?” Kale asked. He was pressed against me, a leg thrown over one of mine and an arm around my waist. He kissed my shoulder, but his gaze was on me. “You’re frowning.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I can’t get wrinkles now, huh?” I quipped, stroking a hand up and down his thigh. Touching him so freely was surreal. The strange tension between us was still there, lurking in the background, waiting for a chance to shatter our fragile state of comfort.

“It’s ok to miss him, Alexa. I’m not delusional enough to believe I’m the one for you. I know how this is supposed to play out. And I’m ok with that. Just being here with you now is enough.”

Kale’s declaration sliced through me like a dagger. Feeling like I’d just been stabbed, I turned my face away so he couldn’t see the blood tears I blinked back. Inwardly I cursed my emotions for being on overdrive. I could go from a torrent of tears to a maniacal rage in a split second. It was frustrating to have such little control over myself.

I turned back to face him, hoping like hell that he couldn’t see the anguish I stuffed down inside me. “I’m not going to lie. It’s hard for me without him. But don’t for a minute think that you don’t mean the world to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking ashamed. “I shouldn’t have said that. This really isn’t the time or place.”

“No, it’s fine. You should say whatever you feel.” I ran my fingers through his hair and down the side of his face. I could stare into those amazing eyes for days and still find them fascinating. “Anything we bring to this room stays in this room.”

“I just don’t want to make this harder on you by saying shit like that. I sound like a bad Hollywood movie.”

“So you mean every Hollywood movie then.” I gave him a playful nudge, happy when I got a small chuckle out of him.

The sound of a cold autumn rain beat against the covered window. It was the perfect background noise for a day in bed with a forbidden lover. It did kind of feel like a movie. Not a bad one though. Just a sad one about a bittersweet love affair between two people who could only hurt each other.

The bedside lamp bathed us in its warm glow. I watched him, captivated by the way the light and shadow played over Kale as he sprawled next to me. Every time I thought I was spent, I craved more of him.

He dragged a hand over my stomach, tracing lazy circles around my navel. As bad as we might have been together, I felt safe with him. If only I could hide away there in his bed forever.

“Do you ever miss your wolf, Kale?” I asked, knowing this might be my only chance to ask him about it. “I can’t even feel it inside you. When I read that in Veryl’s file about you, it blew my mind. It still does.”

“For the first few decades I did kind of miss it, although I’d never really enjoyed being a werewolf anyway. After a while, I stopped feeling it. I never missed it again until I met you.” He paused as if thinking back all those centuries. “I was never really cut out for being a wolf. Not like you are.”

He told me about becoming a wolf, how the military that served the existing English monarch at the time forced him into it for an operation so long ago. That had led him straight into the arms of a vampiress with a serious case of the crazies. I hated hearing about Eva. I hated her for what she’d made him. And then I hated myself for being so much like her, unable to let him go but unable to love him the way he deserved. She and I were not so different.

We lay there talking about so many things. And while we talked, we touched. A simple caress was not so simple at all when it was Kale’s hands in my hair or his lips finding the curve of my hip. Sunset drew closer, and with it, my disappointment grew. I didn’t want to leave that room.

“What do you plan to do with Gabriel?” Kale’s sudden question reminded me that there was another new and very powerful vampire roaming the city.

“I have no idea. I suppose I’ll have to do something. Keeping him away from the FPA is a must.”

“Not to mention Shya,” Kale said. “He’s being awfully quiet these days. It’s suspicious.”

I stiffened at the sound of that name. Even the fire Kale stoked back to life with every touch couldn’t soothe the chill that Shya instilled. Shya’s rage had scared me. His silence was soul-crushingly terrifying. There was no underestimating him. I wasn’t fool enough to believe I’d won when it came to the demon. I might have stopped him from taking over a demon queen’s empire, but I still bore his mark.

“He’s not done with me. Not by a long shot. I don’t even want to think about him right now.” I stretched out beside Kale and slid my hands over his chest. My fingertips tingled as our energies collided.

“If you need me for anything, just say the word. I’m ready to act as your second. It’s only right.” He nuzzled my neck with playful bites that coaxed a sigh from me.

It bothered me to hear Kale refer to himself as my second, mostly because those were Shya’s words. To me it reinforced the vampire queen status that everyone had been forcing on me. If anyone was to be my second in command, however, it would be Kale. Arys and I were equals, even more so now that I had no mortal weakness. Kale was the next most powerful vampire in the city, aside from possibly Gabriel, which fueled my ridiculous lust for Kale and his power.