Page 87 of Bones

Using his firm yet still gentle hold, Deke backed me up until I was pressed to the rough wooden wall. His dark eyes blazed at my answer.

At my lie.

I inhaled sharply.

Not from fear.Neverfrom fear where Deke was concerned.

But he didn’t know that. Guilt slashed across his face. It slashed through his stomach, and it echoed in mine. Dropping his hand, he started to step away. “Go pack.”

“Don’t make me go.”

“Wh—”

“Please,” I interrupted as I wrapped my trembling fingers around his wrist and shoved his hand back to my throat.

I wasn’t talking about Georgia. I knew Deke would never force me to return to a place I hated. To a man I hated.

I didn’t want to goanywhereelse. Not unless it was with him.

But sick of my lies, he might not want to deal with the hassle of being my mate.

And that? That terrified me worse than Pastor Gideon, Ryan, and the scary man from my vision combined.

Times a million.

Panic outweighed my shame and fears and self-hatred, and my secret spilled out in a hysterical rush. “I was cursed to see things. Visions. Random peeks at the future. Like when you cupped my cheek in the kitchen, and I was content for the first time in my life. I saw that while we were in the woods, and that’s how I knew I could trust you. I don’t want to lose that.”

At just the thought that I was too late, more of those damn tears spilled free.

My words were a whispered, earnest truth. “I don’t want to loseyou.”

I was up before my sentence was finished, and my legs and arms instinctively wrapped around his thick, muscular body. He stormed through the house and up the stairs, not quite transporting us but still moving faster than humanly possible.

Which made sense since he wasn’t human.

My mind caught up with our bodies, and defeat sank into my bones until I wanted to crumble like my walls.

Dissolve into nothingness.

But I had to keep trying. I couldn’t take the coward’s way out with silence. I had to fight.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” I hurried on. “Please don’t send me away.”

He stopped so abruptly, I thought we’d topple from the momentum. “What?”

“Don’t send me away,” I repeated.

“Never. God, the archangels, and Levi him-fucking-self couldn’t pry me away from you, my one.”

That mostly extinguished flame of hope flickered inside me.

I tried to snuff it out before I got ahead of myself.

“But you told me to pack,” I pointed out.

“We both need to. We can’t stay. It’s too far from the others,” Deke said softly. “It was a risk to even come here. If I’m bouncing us back and forth every day and something happens, I could be no use to anyone.”

“Your magicks can run out?”

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