Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
I held my breath. Did his eyes just glow blue? And had he really told me to call him Alexander to be more formal with me? To keep a distance between us?
“It isn’t you,” he tried to assure me.
I wasn’t sure I believed him. I also wasn’t sure I’d just seen two bright blue globes where his eyeballs were. But if I hadn’t imagined it, did that mean…?
The woman sat up straight behind the wheel and smiled at me through the mirror. She was beautiful. Something about her seemed so familiar too….
Huh. My stomach relaxed.
“Really,” she said sweetly, “we aren’t.”
She seemed… earnest. I snuck my hands between my thighs. “Is it because he didn’t want to meet me and now he’s stuck with me?”
The man, Leon, snickered before fully turning around in his seat to look at Alexander. “What’s wrong with you? Why would you tell her that?”
“What? Was I supposed to lie?”
Leon shook his head at the same time Selene did. “Ignore him. He’s lucky you’re so pretty,” she said.
I blinked at her random compliment, but beside me, the son of a bitch snorted. “She’s all right looking.”
I scoffed. He wasn’t wrong, and part of me couldn’t believe he’d noticed what I looked like, but…. “I can hear you,” I griped.
“I wasn’t trying to be discreet,” he shot back.
Oh boy. “I thought we were friends now!” I said softly, feeling betrayed.
“Friends don’t lie to each other.” He sounded so damn serious too as he lowered his voice and said, “I made sure you didn’t pee on yourself. You’re welcome.”
He’d gone there.
Why did that surprise me? “Well, thank you very much for that, much appreciated, but I fed you after you hadn’t brushed your teeth in who knows how long, so I’d say we’re almost even.” I’d meant to whisper it, but it came out louder than I expected. Plus, I was still in his debt. We weren’t even at all, but with that “all right looking” comment….
Alex blinked, then he spoke a little louder too. “My body doesn’t excrete fluids the way yours does. My nose is more sensitive than yours is.”
Really? “Maybe your sweat isn’t stinky, but I think you’re overestimating the freshness of your mouth.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining when you slept on top of me for days.”
“You put me there.”
“Exactly. I didn’t see you crawling away from my breath then,” he said, sounding fucking smug.
I swear….
I almost laughed.
What was wrong with me? How the hell had I ended up here? I was arguing with one of the Trinity about body odor. I couldn’t have even dreamed this shit up; it was so ridiculous.
What had the world come to?
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? He wasn’t just The Defender. He was… Alexander. He was a crabby, sarcastic little shit who wasn’t actually little. He liked arguing.
And for some fucked-up reason, I liked arguing with him.
And I refused to fucking admit it.
“They’re bickering like little kids, and I am here for it,” Selene whispered.
“How has no one suffocated you in your sleep?” I growled.
It was his maybe-brother but maybe-close-relative Leon who muttered, “We’ve tried.”
“I wish you would have tried harder.”
Selene’s laugh made me smile, and the funny expression on Alex’s face made me smile even wider.
I smiled at her a little through the mirror, my stomach loosening just a tiny bit more, giving me the tiniest hope that maybe this was all going to be okay. “Can I ask you both something?”
Beside me, Alex’s eyes glowed, but I ignored him.
“Is he always this mean, or is it just me that brings out the best in him?” I asked them, not totally sure which answer I wanted to hear.
They both laughed, these nice, bright, friendly laughs, but it wouldn’t be until hours later that I realized neither one of them actually answered me.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“This is your house?” I gasped.
Alex grumbled as I stumbled after him in front of the modern Tudor-style building that may or may not be his home.
It was massive.
I’d passed out at some point in the car ride after listening to Selene and Leon explain just how they had gotten to us. They had flown to the nearest major city—Denver, apparently, we’d been in a town two hours north of there—and they had rented a car and driven over. Something had been off in their tones while they explained, and I wondered if even they were wondering why we hadn’t flown back. And I didn’t mean in an airplane. I had no ID.
Their words had gotten soft as I’d fallen asleep, the nerves, not feeling well, all of it hitting me hard. I’d woken up a few times, thanks to a shake of my shoulder to use the bathroom or to eat fast food they’d gotten through the drive-through. The sun rose and fell, then rose again in the longest road trip of all time. But I must have really needed the rest because I’d fallen back asleep almost instantly each time.