Silly me.
Instead, we found a posse looking for me.
I was standing at the next motel we would open up when Moon and Vitor—who were my guards for the day—both burst out laughing. I blinked at them, shocked, given both were pretty stoic, so to see them laugh together was also odd.
“Do I get in on the joke?” I asked when they calmed down.
“Go, get more people to handle this. I’ll protect her,” Vitor told him.
“Sure you can handle it?” Moon checked, both of them chuckling again before taking off… At human speed. What was up with that?
Vitor took my hand and pulled me towards the motel. “We need to move.”
“Um, what is going on?”
“Donny got bold, and he brought friends,” he answered, still sounding way too amused. We ducked down a hallway and then in a maintenance room, which he threw the lock on.
I opened my mouth to ask for a bit more than that, but he moved his fingers over my mouth as he backed me against the other wall. His eyes filled with something naughty as he realized how advantageous this was for him, but then glanced at the door.
“Where did they go?”
“Find her,” Donny snapped. “I want that bitch found. We get her and the ‘husbands.’ We get them, and she’ll do whatever we want.”
“Wait, I thought we were going to kill them so you could marry her and take over?” one of the other guys replied.
My eyes went wide and Vitor nodded, looking like he might start laughing again. He was probably thinking of these idiots going against Kristoff.
Oh fuck, I was going to laugh too. He would break them all dead before they blinked.
“Yes, of course we’re going to do that, but we won’t tell her that. Be smart. If she knows they’re dead, she’ll just order her people to wipe us out, but if we have them as hostages, she’ll cry and cave. She’s weak, like all women. The fact they all bow to her is sickening.”
“She must be one hell of a fuck to get them to,” another jeered.
“I’m not touching a whore like her. She only lives until we fully take over, and then I’ll find someone pure from her people and make her a proper leader and preacher’s wife.”
I rolled my eyes. Seriously, could they be anymore cliché? Yes, they were such righteous, loving people serving their god, as they were completely fake and plotting several murders.
“I think I found something,” a different guy called over.
They moved away and Vitor focused back on us being alone in a dark closet. He leaned down and brushed his lips over my ear. “I want you, Inez.”
I shook my head, looking away. His fingers fell off my lips and trailed down my neck, over my arm, and across the exposed skin of my stomach. I shivered at the touch, and that seemed to excite him… But I was still terrified of him.
What the fuck was wrong with me that I was attracted to someone who I was scared of?
Twice now.
Idiot.
“I can smell I excite you,” he murmured.
“You also scare me,” I reminded him. “I can’t do this. Please, don’t we have enough—I have too much, Vitor. I’m about to break.”
“Don’t break. I will protect you from all the threats, My Princess. I won’t push you. I only want hope.” He cupped my cheek when I looked at him. “You could want me.” He leaned in more and let me feel his hard-on. “This tempts you.”
I shook my head again. “You said you were interested in me, not just sex, Vitor.”
“Yes.”
I sighed, letting my head thump against the wall. “I don’t have any more love in me to give. I don’t have any more anything to give. It all hurts too much and you scare me. Kristof and I started badly like this, and it was a miracle we made it work, but I still fully believe he will change his mind and leave me. I don’t even understand what you all are so interested in besides I’m unlike other princesses.”
“That’s a good thing,” he muttered. “Yes, that is a huge part of it.”
I swallowed a dark laugh. “So I’m just the best option out of the limited number of us. Who wouldn’t swoon at that and think, yes, I should go for this when I’m scared of the man?”
“No, that is not what I meant.”
“It’s how you all make me feel sometimes,” I admitted. I held up my hand when he opened my mouth. “I can’t give you what you need, Vitor, and I say this not to be mean, but even hearing half of what you suffered at your last coven makes you one of the last people who should jump into something with another princess.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t asking to court you, but for hope.”
“Why? Why say it when I don’t think I could ever act on it?”
“Because I would never rush you or push you like they did. I want to know the truth from your lips and figure out the rest as we’re ready, not rush to give you my oath.”
I searched his eyes. “You’ll stop pushing? You promise?”
“Yes.”
I had a hard time believing that… Then again, it had taken him months to even tell me he was interested. I sighed. “Yes, I find you attractive. Yes, my body wants you. Yes, if things were different I might absolutely find out the fun of hooking up and hook up with you. But that’s it. I don’t have it in me for another relationship. I don’t.”
“I believe you. They’ve beaten you up too much.”
“Not just them,” I reminded him.
“That’s fair,”
