Page 45 of Shadow Hunter

“I wouldn’t trust anyone else to watch my back.” Mark nudged her shoulder. “Good-lookin’ guy, too. Maybe you’ll find a hunter like him someday, then I won’t have to take care of you anymore.” He grinned.

“Pssh, like you take care of me now?” Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. If he’s anything like you I’d kick him to the curb.”

Mark met her eyes. “Seriously, Tiff. He’s a good man.”

A good man.

A good man, who when push came to shove, had left her brother to die alone.

B had been…No,Damonhad been his best friend. His fighting partner. The man her brother had looked up to when they no longer had a father, even though they were nearly the same age. Mark had said B had been like a brother to him. His best friend.

Something inside Tiffany snapped. No. No.

No. No. No. No.

She hadnotslept with the man responsible for her brother’s death, given him her virginity.

“How could you abandon him?” she breathed. She choked on her own tears, barely able to speak. “Why didn’t you save him?”

She stumbled backward, only for Damon to grab hold of her wrists, holding her up so she didn’t hall to the floor. Her whole body shook as collapsed into him, letting him hold her.

“Tiffany,” he pleaded.

“No!” She wrenched away from him suddenly, refusing to let him care for her. “Don’t you dare act like you cared about him! He trusted you and you let him down, and now he’s dead because of it.”

Damon’s hands clenched into fists, the pain and anguish in his face so palpable she felt it in her bones. But she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t mask her hurt, her fury.

“He looked up to you. He loved you, and you let him die in Caius’s arms!”

“You think I don’t blame myself for his death every day?” His ice-blue eyes blazed. He strode to her, grabbing her shoulders, before he kissed her, hard.

She fell into it, into the intoxicating force of him. She couldn’t stop herself.

By the time he finally pulled away, her tears had slowed, her lips, swollen from where he’d devoured her.

“You think I wouldn’t giveanything, everything, even my own life, to bring him back?” he whispered against her. “Nothing I could ever possibly do would be enough to pay for how I failed him, Tiffany. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but you have to know that I will bear the pain and regret of how I failed him,” he paused and brushed her cheek, wiping her tears away, “of how I hurt you, for the rest of eternity.”

She sucked in a hard breath. “Why?”

His eyes widened as if he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying.

“Tell me why you left him there to die, why you didn’t save him.”

As if unable to face her a moment longer, he turned away from her.

“Tell me why the valiant, brave, courageous B left his partner for dead. Tell me why the man I thought I knew turned out to be a coward.”

Damon hung his head, his back still turned toward her. “Because I am not, and never was, any of those things.”

“Don’t lie to me. Tell me why, damn it!”

He shook his head. “You don’t want to know the details, Tiffany. You—”

She rounded him, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t want, B!”

The nickname she’d known him by, finally spoken aloud, fell between them, his eyes softening.

“Please tell me.”

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