Page 106 of Cerulean Truth
Then he spoke slowly, enunciating every word. His voice was laced with poison, his words ice-cold, leaving a trail of goosebumps even Eskimos would be jealous of.
“Call her ‘granny’, one. More. Fucking. Time.”
My eyes widened in shock.Did he just stand up for me?
Enzo snorted derisively. “Then what? You’ll kill me? Like you did those poor people you called your parents?”
Wait. What?
James didn’t dignify Enzo's taunt with words, but the simmering rage emanating from his body spoke volumes.
“It’s sad, really,” Enzo sneered on. “The Council losing their prized contract killer to Leadership is one thing, but to see him fall under the sway of Miss Epic Disaster… I gotta tell ya, never thought I’d see the day the mighty James Walker would forsake his Leadership for a granny. But then again, I guess no one really did.”
One second Enzo was standing. The next he was lying down, unconscious. With one single blow to the head, James had knocked the asshole out.
I clutched my hand before my mouth. My eyes darted swiftly to James’s face, trying to discern what the heck was going through his mind. I expected any form of rage or emotion showing but his demeanor was stone-cold. His breathing, as far as I could tell, was regular and there was no tremor in his hands.
Without shifting a muscle, he nonchalantly nudged Enzo with his left foot, as if testing whether he had transformed the latter into a corpse. Enzo remained unresponsive.
A few seconds passed. James kicked him a little harder. Still no reaction.
James took out his Nexus and translated something to someone. A second later, Jackson appeared.Crap. I leaned as far back as I could to the wall, making sure I stayed invisible.
“Are you kidding me with this shit, James?” He hissed as he stepped through his green portal.
James's expression remained unyielding, as Jackson bent over Enzo.
“What the hell did he do to deserve this?” Jackson's frustration was evident as he gestured wildly.
“He insulted her,” James stated coldly, clearly not feeling the need to elaborate further.
Three little words. Three little words that made me forget all about our earlier fight. Three little words that ignited a surge of warmth within me, flooding my senses with very conflicting emotions.
“He insulted her..." Jackson shook his head in disbelief. “And you’re still fucking convinced you’re in control?”
He didn’t even await James’s answer. I watched as Jackson muttered something under his breath, opened up another portal, and ushered James through it while levitating Enzo in the same direction.
A second later, all three of them had vanished, leaving me cloaked in shadows and overwhelmed by confusion.
The evening suncasted an orange glow through my window and I seated myself in its warmth. The book I had intended to read lay forgotten in my lap, my mind drifting far from its pages.
“Call her ‘granny’, one. More. Fucking. Time.”
“He insulted her.”
Each time I replayed those words in my mind, my stomach did that thing. That thing I usually only got from reading passionate scenes in my trashy novels.
Before James had started training me, we had been…something. Not something I could describe in words, but it had been…something! In those first few weeks after my retrieval, James had been far warmer toward me than he was now. Or had that been my imagination?
Ever since the night of my abduction, his demeanor had ranged from indifference to outright rudeness. And that was putting it mildly. We’d had no more intimacy, no more longing looks, no more accidental touches. Nothing. Not from his side anyway.
It was as if everything that had happened between us before, which wasn’t much to begin with, had never happened. And I couldn't fathom why things had changed so drastically.
The night he saved my life—and stayed by my side the entire night while I slept, leaving my heart pounding like a lumberjack on crack when I found out—something between us had shifted.
Initially, I suspected it had something to do with Justine. However, aside from her reaction on the night of the reception, I had found no further evidence to support that theory. Plus, when I broached the subject in a casual conversation with Jackson—who was becoming something of a friend—his utterly confused reaction suggested that any romantic involvement with her was purely a figment of her imagination.
So that wasn't the reason.
