Page 20 of Dark Angel

Fear flashes through me. Don’t leave. “Why the hell would you do that? You're staying with me. Razor wants you on the task force. You need time. We both do.” I punch my voice with the command I use as a Dom and thank the gods that it keeps my voice from wavering. I don't thank her for not touching me, for recognizing that might have broken me even if a part of me longs for it. I slide two pieces of buttered toast across the table. “Eat.”

She contemplates her tea for a moment before taking another sip. "I'm not hungry, thanks."

My eyes narrow, irritation and concern rising in tandem. "Eat something.” The command in my voice is hard to miss. "Being stubborn won’t help if you're on the verge of collapse."

Her eyes lock onto mine, a defiant blaze flickering within. "Thanks for the concern, but I don't need a babysitter, Captain Control."

"Stubborn woman!” Frustration and unspoken admiration infuse my words. “Your body needs fuel to heal. Strength doesn't come from starvation."

For a moment, my rough exterior softens as I recognize her prickly barbs for what they are . . . Self-protection. I place some jam in front of her. "Eat. It's not up for debate."

Her gaze locks with mine, a fleeting game of mental chess unfolding in her irises. Ultimately, she decides it's a battle not worth fighting today. "Thank you, kind sir. Would you happen to have any orange marmalade?”

Her feigned politeness triggers my short fuse, igniting an emotional tinderbox I've been trying to contain. With barely repressed force, I reach into the fridge and place a jar of orange marmalade on the table. “A few things you should know about me. I don’t do fake. Either show me who you really are or don’t show me anything at all.” While I’ve got a full head of steam on, I continue, my voice tinged with a biting cold, “And, I don’t do love.”

Her eyes morph, the soft brown toughening into something resembling steel. "Well then, Captain Control, here's my response to that bullshit. First, I have no interest in love. It's merely a tool for manipulation. Second, my politeness is not a sign of being fake; it's a courtesy, one your upbringing apparently overlooked. But I’ll remember for next time that instead of saying thank you, I should say fuck you, asshole. When I say I don’t want to eat, I mean just that. Now, take me to my sister.” She slams her mug on the table and marches toward the elevator, stopping midway and turning back to face me. “Oh, and if I were being polite, I’d have said please, but you’ve pissed me right off. I said take me to my sister.” Turning back toward the elevator, she mutters something that comes through our link loud and clear. "Sick of people thinking the worst of me."

And just like that, she takes the wind out of my sails and kicks my ass leaving me utterly disarmed by her verbal onslaught. Strangely, I find myself savoring the sting of it. She halts at the elevator and pivots, arching an eyebrow. "Well?"

My retinas do their biometric dance with the elevator scanner, and I sense her irritation shifting into intense curiosity. “Super cool, Batman. How did you do that? With your eyes?"

I keep my emotions under lock and key, masking the unfamiliar thrill her curiosity elicits. "It's a security measure, nothing more."

A complex silence unfolds as I acknowledge, if only to myself, that Rayne poses a challenge I can't neatly categorize or control. It's both disarming and thrilling, rattling the emotional fortress I've painstakingly built over the years. As I confront this revelation, I'm pulled between the compelling urge to explore this uncertain terrain and my deep-seated aversion to vulnerability rooted in scars I dare not acknowledge.

We both step into the elevator and for a moment, her gaze meets mine—no games, no pretenses. It leaves me pondering whether she, like me, thinks about the strange relationship we've started to forge.

The elevator doors close us in, a microcosm away from the world, detached and intimate in its metallic embrace. "You ready?"

"Yes," she says. Direct and to the point. Nice. An intriguing silence envelops us, a silence neither stifling nor liberating, just laden with a nebulous something neither of us can name.

As we settle into the car, the supple leather of the seats inhaling our presence, she buckles her seatbelt with a quiet click. Her eyes, those windows to untold worlds, find mine. The air thrums with her unspoken questions.

"Just drive, Captain Control," she eventually speaks, the edges of her mouth curling into a sly half-smile that threads a spark of something lighter into the tensile atmosphere.

It's strange how a title coined in a moment of friction could fit so comfortably. I forget for a moment how much I detest pet names. As I return her smile, something deep within me churns, like the first fluttering leaves heralding an oncoming storm. The ignition roars to life, syncing with the silent charge between us.

We head toward Harmony Hills Treatment Centre, each of us a study in contrasts. She's strong, no doubt about it, fully aware of who she is. As for me, there's something stirring, something I've managed to lock away under years of control and deliberate isolation. I brush it off as simple friendship, but a nagging thought tells me it might not be that simple.

The road stretches ahead, a blank canvas waiting for the first brushstroke. My grip tightens on the wheel as I consider how last night’s events have changed something between us—what that means, I can't yet say. Every mile adds a layer of certainty to my unease, this tension between curiosity and caution.

There's a stir of emotion, one I'd smothered and forgotten, making me uneasy in a way I can't remember feeling in a long time. But there's something magnetic about that discomfort. As we cut through the air, I'm caught between wanting to dig deeper into whatever's happening between us and my instinctual fear of emotional messiness. It's a risky balance, threatening either a liberating breakthrough or a fall into vulnerability—maybe both. But for now, the road is open, and anything feels possible.

12

RAYNE

The countryside blurs into a sea of green, a fleeting backdrop to the real show going on inside this car. Jaden threads the Ferrari around curves like they're nothing, and that engine—its purr goes straight to my gut, a sound that's way too intimate for comfort. I tell myself it's just the car's horsepower making my heart race, not the guy holding the wheel. What a load of crap.

The way Jaden controls this beast of a car—it's magnetic. He doesn't just drive; he commands, steering not just metal and rubber but the atmosphere in the car, shaping it into something I can almost touch. I want to dive deeper, understand what makes him tick. Dammit, why can't I shake this pull toward him?

Fact: he's killed people. But, man, there's layers to him, shades of something softer glimpsed beneath that lethal surface. When he showed that flicker of care and compassion, it threw me. I know that kind of darkness—the kind that makes you put up walls so high you can't even see the sun. I shake my head. No, he's not some broken bird; the guy can clearly fend for himself. But those walls . . . I recognize them. They're built from the same material as my own. But not everyone's a victim. Not even him.

It messes with me, this attraction. Half of me is shouting to run from the ticking time bomb beside me, but the other half? That part wants to get to the hidden layers beneath the killer façade. It's like some twisted rom-com narrative is playing out in my head: he's the Neo to my Trinity. A Matrix-level mind fuck, but for keeps.

Our eyes lock again, and it's like I'm diving into some kind of messed-up ocean, a place where you can't tell where the danger really lies. I see a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes, like a flashing "proceed with caution" sign, but hell, I'm already in too deep to heed it. The landscape outside is a blur of pretty and peaceful, but it’s just surface-level calm. Kind of like me, really.

I can't help but look his way, and every time I do, it's like getting pulled in by a magnet. Jaden’s a killer, dark and dangerous, and the more he's around, the more conflicted I feel. He killed for me, and something messed up in me is loving it. A killer and a perv? Yeah, he's got it all, and my brain is screaming red flags. But my heart, that traitor, is pounding to a different beat, perfectly in sync with the hum of the engine—or is it his own heartbeat I'm feeling?

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