Page 40 of Her Soul to Own

Lyra has wiped her face with her forearm, smearing paint across her cheek. She looks like a warrior and a poem all at once.

“I’m not backing off,” I say quietly.

“Then make peace with what’s coming,” Marcus replies. “Because if she opens the file all the way, you’re not just losing the job. You’re losing everything.”

I sit there, still as stone, watching Lyra smear another streak of black across the canvas like she’s marking a grave.

And I realize… the war’s already started. I’ve just been too busy watching her dance in the flames to realize I’m standing in the middle of the fire.

He hangs up. No goodbye, no warning. He’s already said enough.

The second the call ends, I’m already moving.

Rage coils in my chest like a lit fuse, burning hotter with every step. Marcus doesn’t call for nothing. If he says someone in the Bureau is sniffing around, I believe him. If he says it leads back here, toher…

She’s been holed up in that art studio for the last hour, music blaring, brush strokes erratic and wild like she’s trying to exorcise something through color. I’ve been watching her on the cameras for at least an hour now, paint streaking her face and neck. Her body moving with that same careless defiance that always makes me want to pin her against the nearest surface and remind her who she’s playing with.

I don’t knock.

The door slams open hard enough to rattle the hinges.

She doesn’t flinch. Lyra Vane doesn’tdofear anymore, it seems like. She looks up from the canvas with one eyebrow raised, the brush still in hand. The smell of turpentine and acrylics hits me first. Then the heat. And then her.

“Jesus, Creed. Heard of knocking?”

“What the fuck did you do?”

She sets the brush down with infuriating calm. “You’re going to have to be a lot more specific, Mr. Asshole.”

I stalk toward her, my boots echoing across the concrete floor. Her studio is a mess, sheets of canvas in various states of ruin and bold colors bleeding like open wounds. She’s wearing an old tank top. It’s loose and paint-stained. No bra. Her legs are bare and speckled with crimson and blue, her shorts barely containing that ass of hers.

She looks like a painting come alive. Violent, rebellious, and feral.

And fuck me, I’m getting hard.

“You contacted someone in the FBI,” I snarl. “Don’t play stupid. An associate of mine got wind of it. You think this is a fucking game?”

Her eyes narrow, her lips curling into that goddamn smirk that makes me want to shake her and kiss her in the same breath.

“Oh, that,” she says sweetly. “Guess you’re not the only one with secrets.”

I move fast.

One hand slams the wall beside her while the other grabs her wrist and pins it high above her head. She gasps, but I can see that it’s not from fear. It’s from adrenaline and the electricity snapping between us for days now.

“If you know what I’ve done,” I growl, my voice low and dark, “then why the fuck are you still here?”

She stares up at me, her breath hitching. Her chest rises and falls fast, and I also notice there’s paint on her lips. Red paint. Like blood.

“Because if you get to know everything about me,” she whispers, “then I get to know everything about you. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

My grip becomes more rigid. She tilts her chin, daring me. Always daring.

I want to hate her. I want to scare her. But all I feel is heat and the dangerous thrill of being seen.

“You’re playing with fire, Vane.”

Her voice is a rasp when she replies, “Then burn me.”

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