Page 6 of Beautiful Exile

My fingers curled around the hilt of my knife, pushing the button to release the blade. I whirled, pressing it to the stranger’s neck, freezing him in place. When I was sure of that stillness, I looked up,up, up into the face of the most beautiful man I had ever seen. But I’d learned once before that looks could be deceiving. You never knew what lay below the surface. So, I kept my blade pressed where it was as the man’s hazel eyes widened in surprise.

“Who. The. Hell. Are. You?”

2

LINCOLN

God,she was fucking gorgeous. She had a wild, powerful kind of beauty. The kind you could never control. The type you could never cage.

I’d stood in the shadows like a creep, watching her: the way she moved, her long, dark brown ponytail swinging with each punch. Her tan skin pulling tautly over lean muscle. She was on the petite side, but you’d never know that, given how much force she put behind her blows.

It was clear the woman had training, and the fact that she currently had a blade pressed to my carotid told me she wasn’t afraid to use it. Amusement was my first reaction, that the tiny powerhouse was so full of fire.

She pressed the blade harder against my skin, not enough to slice me open but enough to prick my flesh. The sting took hold the same way her beauty had.

“I asked who you were,” she gritted out, her gray-violet eyes flashing.

The fierceness there had all amusement fleeing from my system.Because there was only one reason someone defended themselves with such ferocity: they’d been hurt before.

Fuck.

I slowly lifted my hand, revealing a key ring with the Haven gym tag I’d picked up yesterday dangling from it, one coded to let people into the gym any time after six. “New gym member.”

The woman didn’t show any signs of retreat. Her bewitching eyes simply narrowed on me, looking for all my secrets. “It isn’t open yet.”

I kept my hand where she could see it, not wanting to risk further injury but also not wanting to frighten her more. I wanted to kick my ass for that as it was. “I was told it opened at six.”

Her gaze flicked to the large clock on the wall, and then she cursed, finally pulling the knife away from my neck. “Of course, Kye’s late,” she muttered.

So, she knew the owner. An owner who happened to be the brother of my best friend, the one who’d gone on and on about the best place to train in Sparrow Falls. A prickle of something unfamiliar slid through me. Were the two involved? No part of me liked that idea. Which was ludicrous, given the fact that the only things I knew about this woman were how quickly she could pull a knife and that she looked like a walking temptation when taking on a heavy bag.

The massive gray dog next to her let out another low growl. Her gaze flicked to him. “Beruhigen.” She spoke as easily as if she’d been born speaking German. For all I knew, she had.

The dog eased but still watched me carefully. I had a feeling he’d lunge if I made even one wrong move. But I was glad she had that.

She watched me closely as she slowly closed the switchblade and stepped back. She wore leggings that hugged every inch of her lean, muscular legs and a black tank top that dipped just enough to hint at what was under it—something that was none of my business. But as my gaze swept over her, I noticed something else.

Her tan skin was dotted with something. Paint. Gray, black, deep purple, and blue. The pattern had no rhyme or reason, but I found I wanted to search for every last speck of color.

She cleared her throat, annoyance evident in the sound.

My gaze flicked up to her face and the swirling irises that had held me rapt a moment ago. Those gray-violet orbs were siren’s eyes. Ones that could cast a spell and make you crash your ship against a rocky shore.

One of the paint splatters on her cheek fluttered as she scowled. “What are you staring at?”

“You aren’t going to apologize for nearly cutting my jugular?” I challenged, trying to shift the conversation from my fast-growing obsession.

The woman arched one dark brow at that. “You’re the one who broke into a gym without permission. You’re lucky you’re still breathing.”

Those siren’s eyes flashed a brighter violet as she spoke, and I thought I fell just a little bit in love with her fire.

“Vicious,” I muttered, but there was only admiration in my tone. “Though I don’t know if it can be consideredbreaking inwhen the door was unlocked, and I called out. But it’s hard to hear over this…noise.”

Annoyance flickered across the woman’s features as she bent and snatched a phone from the mat. She tapped the screen a few times, and the music cut off. “It’s notnoise,it’sCradle of Filth.”

My lips twitched. “You said it, not me.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s the band’s name.”

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