Page 62 of Bones

Okay, never mind. He’s not unreal. He’s insane.

Leave it to my curse to deliver me to a man who’s even nuttier than I am.

“Mates. Right.” I inched away, not that there was anywhere to go. The couch was oversized, but so was the man himself. “So if this is a sex cult, I amnotyour girl. I don’t like it, and I have enough sins on my tab already. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“You didn’t like sex with whatever losers you’ve wasted time with before me. But that’s not what this is, and I wasn’t kidding about that being nauseating.” True to his words, he looked green as he grimaced and swallowed hard. “And now I also want to take time we don’t have to hunt down whoever you were with to kick their asses for touching you and then thank them for being incompetent at it.”

Lucky for you, it’s a short list.

I didn’t share that. Ignoring the warmth that filled me at his crazy possessiveness, I forced myself to stay focused on his crazy craziness. “Welp, now that that’s cleared up”—I hooked a thumb over my shoulder toward the door—“I’m going to go for a quick walk. To, uh, enjoy the weather.”

He glanced out the window that showed the snow had picked up until white was almost all we could see before looking back at me with one brow arched. “Hell, I’m fucking this up. Just… Let me get this all out, and then we can go from there.”

“Even ifgo from thereliterally means me going out there?” I tested.

His jaw clenched, and I had to hand it to him, at least he was honest. “No.”

That should’ve been terrifying.

It should’ve made me run for the door, him and the storm be damned.

It should’ve made me grab a knife or his phone or even Victoria. She’d bonded with me. I’d put money on her biting him in my defense.

What his answer shouldn’t have done was surge into a spot in my chest, filling it until I thought my ribs would crack. It disappeared just as quickly, making me hyperaware of how empty it was.

How empty I always was.

“Don’t do that,” Deke ordered, but it wasn’t firm. It was pleading.

“What?”

“That hollowness. It breaks my damn heart. I’m sorry, baby, but I can’t let you go. There is more happening than you know, and that includes danger.” He rushed on to explain, though I was lagging a couple of sentences behind. “Not from me. Fuck, never from me. At least, not directly.” Another rough scrub of his palm down his face. “Shit, this is hard. All this time searching for you, and I never planned what the hell I’d say once I found you.”

“You’ve been searching for me?” I shook my head. “Wait, what did you mean about the hollowness?”

Because he was right. That was the perfect word for how I felt because it was more than simply empty. There was an echoing, cavernous depth to it.

But how did he know?

“Let me start from the beginning.” He kept a watchful eye on me.

And then he was gone.

“Whydo you keep disappearing?” I shouted, my hysterical voice joined by Victoria’s angry barking.

It was a stupid thing to yell. He hadn’t just hightailed it away from me like he’d done before.

The man had vanished into thin air.

All six and a half feet of him, gone.

Poof.

Presto, change-o, abra-freaking-cadabra.

I stood and spun around, scanning for wires, mirrors, or something to explain the magic act.

Bent over, I was in the process of pulling the cushions from the couch to check for a trapdoor when he reappeared behind me.

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