“Turn off the simulation,” I said. The room immediately dismantled the image. It was almost like it had been waiting for me. Like it knew this was a bad deal. Without the illusion, Kai was just sitting on the floor.
“Get out,” he said. “You don’t need to be here.”
“Yeah I got that. But since you’re disturbing the peace and I’m not going to be able to sleep, I thought I might as well stick around.”
“Really?” he said. “You mean you don’t want to take another cheap shot at me? Or accuse me of wallowing in my grief?”
I shrugged and lowered myself down on one knee beside him. “Believe me, the urge is definitely still there.”
The growl that he emitted was so sharp it scraped at my skin. He flipped from his sitting position to crouch in front of me. His fists slammed into the concrete floor. It sent cracks blossoming out into a half-dozen circles. All of the hairs on my body stood to attention. I’d seen him in this kind of killing rage before, but it was never directed at me. My eyes must have been two big saucers of white.
“I said leave! I don’t need your pity. You’ve made yourself very clear. If I wanted to listen to someone spewing sarcasm I would –”
My fist clipped him right in the jaw. It didn’t do much besides cause his cheek to ripple a little, but he got the message. Way back when we’d first met, he’d told me I had no flight response. Even with a manticore breathing down my neck, I didn’t have the good sense to run. So of course, when I had an enraged Nephilim shouting at me, my first instinct was to hit back. That’s about where my bag of tricks ended.
His arm shot out. He grabbed me around the waist. I tried to scramble away but he was much too fast. There was barely enough time to formulate a plan of counterattack before he strode to the door and was yanking it open. I had a feeling he was going to toss me out. I drew a circle around the both of us and tightened it inch by inch so that it became a tether. Where I went, he went.
“Undo the circle,” he seethed. With the circle hampering his ability to move, his chest was pressed right up against my shoulder. I could feel the heat of his breath against my neck. The door yawned open. My earlier command had had very little influence. Those that had scattered returned with other lemming friends. Every single one of them was watching us like we were some kind of half-time show.
My attention locked on Chanelle standing there wrapped in a light shawl. Of course she slept in a silk slip. Why not? It wasn’t as though we were living in dangerous times. Kai saw what I was looking at. If possible, his eyes narrowed even further.
“Undo. The. Circle.”
I clenched my fist. The circle constricted. My cheek mashed against his collarbone. “I’m not joking, Alessia.”
I had a death wish.
“I’m not joking, Alessia,” I mimicked, letting my voice drop. He didn’t seem to appreciate what I thought was a pretty good imitation. I exercised impressive restraint. After all, I didn’t beat at my chest or anything. There was enough room for him to turn me around so that we faced each other. The sound of the door slamming shut had me gasping. He pressed my back against it. His hands came down on either side of my shoulders, caging me in place. I lifted my gaze and stared him right in the eye.
The pool of green had turned into a murky swamp. Still I found myself swimming in them. “You don’t get to pick and choose when you want to be around me,” he said.
I snorted. “Tell me about it. I certainly don’t want to be around you at the moment. And judging by how scarce they’ve made themselves, neither does anyone else.”
“Then why don’t you just leave?” he snarled in my face.
“Because me being here is annoying. Right now, I’d rather you be annoyed than watch you hurt yourself over and over again with something that you can’t change.”
He scoffed. “It’s only real if I still hurt.”
“Disagree. Want me to kick you in the balls again to see if you remember the pain?” He flinched and moved his hips away from me. I let out a laugh, but it was humourless. It made me think about why I’d kicked him in the first place.
“If you’re so hell bent on doing this, Chanelle’s outside. Why don’t you do this with her?”
His face twisted into a mask of irritation. He’d been angry at me, but this wasn’t anger. It was something else. “Then tell me,” I said. When he looked away, I grabbed the scruff of his shirt and dragged him back. “What’s happened to set you off? When you close your eyes at night, what monsters are chasing you?”
It was the only thing I could think of that would reduce someone like him to such blinding fury. On the same day last year, he hadn’t been like this. So whatever this was, it was recent. I could only think of one thing that made me want to claw at my own skin and that was being helpless in the face of something that terrified me.
“It was nothing.” His voice was a harsh whisper. I didn’t think he noticed that his hand had moved to my hip. He balled my shirt in his fist. It was clenched so tight I heard material tearing.
All of a sudden, I knew. “You saw the prophecy,” I said.
“Blue.” The pressure of his mouth was bruising when he kissed me, but I didn’t back away. He jerked me forward with the hand on my hip. I moved with
