Endless Knight(27)

As if I hadn’t spoken, he entered, shutting the door behind him, tossing his bow and backpack on the table. He shook out his hair like an animal, sending pinpricks of cool water across my face and arms. Black locks whipped across his handsome face.

“What the hell are you doing?”


He removed his jacket and hung it on a rickety chair to dry in front of the fire. “We’re goan to talk.” He dragged out another chair, sinking his tall frame into it, his gaze leisurely roaming over me.

“Get—out—now!”


“You doan like me here? Then you’re welcome to stand up and walk out.”


I darted a glance at my clothes. I’d set out a clean outfit—jeans, a sweater, an almost-matching bra and panty set. The bra was red silk, the undies pink lace; close enough. Unfortunately, they were a good five feet away.

I cast him a baleful look, tightening my arms over my chest. “What do you want to talk about that can’t wait? You haven’t said more than a few words in days. Then when I’m enjoying my first hot bath in forever, you get chatty?”


“This way I know you ain’t goan anywhere. And we got a lot to chat about, you and me.” All his cockiness firmly in place, he said, “You’re in love with me.”


Be cool, Evie, don’t let on. “Ahhh, now I see. You found crack out in the woods, didn’t you? Seasoned with bath salts?”


My answer didn’t appear to insult him; in fact, he seemed encouraged by it. “Nah, just some of this.” He pulled a mason jar of clear liquid out of his backpack.

He’d scored moonshine? “You’re like a bloodhound for liquor.”


He took a sip from it, then leered over me with a drunken grin. “Um, um, UM, Evie.”


I sank lower in the tub. Were the bubbles dissolving? “Why don’t you go enjoy that someplace else?”


“Been doing a lot of thinking, figured out some stuff, but I still got questions, me.”


I’d been wondering when, and if, this would come. But I never would have expected it during bath time. “This can’t wait?”


“We ain’t leaving here till we get something settled.” He shook his head hard, seeming determined to talk to me—and to keep his gaze from wandering again. “Like we should’ve done at Finn’s before you ran out on me, stealing his truck to get away from me.”


“And you know why.”


“Ouais.” Yeah. “You thought you saw me and Selena goan at it and you couldn’t handle it.”


“You’re not going to make me feel guilty about this. I believed my own eyes. And you’d just yelled at me: ‘I am done with you!’ I took your words to heart.”


“I was drunk and pissed off that you wouldn’t trust me enough to tell me what was goan on with you. I’m still pissed.”


“And still drunk as well.”


He didn’t deny it.

“In any case, seeing you with Selena—”


“It wasn’t me!”


“—isn’t the only reason I left.”


“I know your other reason. Coo-y?n said you were afraid you were goan to poison me or get me killed by Death, or something.” He waved that away.

“Matthew told you that?”


Breezing past my question, he said, “Which just proves my point. You doan want anything to happen to me. Because you got it bad for me, peek?n.”


My face flushed, the truth laid bare.

“You got it even worse than you let on that night at Finn’s. You remember our little talk?”


“Of course I remember. I wasn’t chugging whiskey like a marooned sailor at the island oasis.” Jackson had talked about starting a life with me—on one condition. “You said I had to give up my quest to find my grandmother. When I told you I couldn’t, you broke up with me.”


“I didn’t break up with you, no. I just shot my mouth off because I was frustrated. Never met a fille so frustrating as you.”


How odd to be having this conversation when I was dressed in disappearing suds.

“I’ve been going over my options.” He raised a forefinger. “Ignore my every survival instinct and stick around some kids who are out to kill each other. Some real sick ones, too.” He raised a second finger. “Or leave and go after the Army of the Southeast, get my revenge.”


Jack and his adopted sister Clotile had been in that army. Only one of them had made it out alive.

“What was your decision?”


“Still here, ain’t I?”


“What swayed you? And why now? It isn’t like you’ve learned something new to change your mind, not since you informed me that I’m not right,” I said pointedly. Unless he had . . . No. That suspicion was too humiliating even to contemplate.

“Like I said, I figured some stuff out on my own.”


“Look, Jackson, say I did have feelings for you. That was before I realized you could never accept my nature. You saw me and freaked out.”


He narrowed his eyes. “I doan freak out, no. I think I’ve handled this pretty damn well. If you’d shown me that shit before, instead of springing it on me—”