Page 90 of Illusory

“You’re scared,” he realized, sounding incredibly hurt by it.

“I’m not scared,” I lied, crossing and uncrossing my arms like a nervous tick. Like I suddenly had no idea what to do with my own arms. “I’m fine. Really. I just…I want to go back home now, okay?”

His brows knitted as he studied my features for a beat. “If you’re not scared of me then why do you want to leave?” he challenged, evidently not buying my story in the least.

“Because this…this isn’t a good idea. All of this is still really new for you, and anything could happen. You know that. We shouldn’t be alone like this without—”

“We’reneverfucking alone,” he cut in and took a step toward me which I instantly matched with a backwards step of my own. His expression dropped at the telling dance.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my heart dipping with regret.

His gaze tightened. “For what?”

For retreating just then. For Turning him. For loving him but also being in love with someone else and not having enough sense to leave either one alone. For being scared out of my mind.

I shook my head and swallowed a sob, unable to produce even a single response for him. There were too many thoughts in my head, too much fear sloshing through my veins. Icouldn’t think straight.

His expression turned pensive, almost curious, as though he were trying to solve a riddle. “Do you think I brought you here to hurt you?” he asked, his baritone voice so deep and low that it scraped against my nerve endings.

“No.” I shook my head, telling the truth. “I know you’d never hurt me on purpose, Trace.”

“You do?” A muscle jumped in his jaw as he examined me. “Even now?”

“Of course,” I whispered. “But we still shouldn’t—”

“I’m just so sick and tired of seeing them everywhere I turn. I just wanted five minutes alone with you, Jemma. Five fucking minutes without them breathing down my neck,” he said, his eyes ransacking mine for some form of understanding.

My phone vibrated in the back pocket of my jeans, and I knew that it was Dominic or Gabriel trying to track me down. “I know. I get it. I do,” I said, nodding into it in the hopes of reassuring him that we were on the same side. “Can I…can I maybe just call them and let them know that I’m safe?”

His frown deepened and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.

“If you feel like you can’t go five minutes without checking in with them then go ahead. Do whatever you need to do, Jemma. This isn’t a hostage situation—I’m not fucking kidnapping you.”

“You’re right. I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you were,” I said, forcing myself to keep smiling despite being frightened at the tinge of hostility in his words. “It’s actually totally fine. I don’t need to call them at all.” My chest seized with panic as though it had reached inside me and put my heart in a chokehold.

“For fuck’s sake,” he snapped, his voice thickening with annoyance. “Will you please just look at me?”

I did—I was. I thought I had been.

“It’sme, Jemma,” he said, his eyes rapt and his tone low and steady as he raised his palms and took an impossibly small step toward me. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? I promise you’re safe. Justlookat me.”

I stared back at him for a few beats, taking in his relaxed jaw and the deep blue of his eyes and the way he held his shoulders, high and squared, like a god ready to conquer battlefields and new worlds. He was completely at ease and seemingly in total control of himself.

And then I felt it, the peaceful, thrumming current of our soulmate bond reaching out between us as if to cradle me in the safety of its embrace and draw us back together again.Alwaysdrawing us back together again.

My heartbeat slowed to a steady rhythm as I latched onto the hum and his eyes and the promise that I was safe. Because Iwassafe with him. I could feel it like a truth etched into my bones, and the panic instantly lifted.

I smiled at him, a true, genuine smile, for the first time today and suddenly he was all I could see. Everything around us—the threats of harm and chaos and distractions—faded away into the background until nothing else existed but me and him. He was the picture again, and everything else was just white noise just like it always was with him.

“Hi,” I said softly, my head tilting in appreciation as I took him in.

That earned me a faint smile in response, but it was enough to set off both his dimples, and then he was moving again, taking another careful step toward me, and then another until all the distance between us had been chewed up and spit out. All I could feel was the burning heat in his eyes and the way our soulmate bond bucked and buzzed under my skin in delight, pleading for me to get closer to him still.

“Hey,” he said in a low husky voice that made my skin tingle all over the place.

Despite his wild, rapturous gaze, his hand came up at a slow and measured pace as if to show me that he was in perfect control of himself. As if to test it out against any resistance. But he wouldn’t find any from me.

I flattened my palm against the back of his hand, pressing it against my cheek as I closed my eyes and sank deeper into the bond, promising to give myself only a few moments before I reigned us back in.

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