Page 22 of Shadow Master
“Your clothes …”
His smile was smug. “Feytech.”
Of course, it was. He was, after all, Orion Winterlock.
Hyde and Orion walked off, and I sagged against Kash.
“Was that what it was?” His tone was laced with disappointment.
“What?” I turned in his arms to face him.
His brow was furrowed. “A stress-relief fuck?”
Oh, shit. I closed my eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No,” he said softly. “I think you did. I think you needed someone, and I just happened to be there. Thing is, Indigo, I fucking care about you enough to let it go. What kind of sap does that make me?” His lip curled in self-derision.
He released me and walked away, back to the tent.
I needed to go after him. To fix things. To tell him that what we’d shared had meant more to me than just a fuck. But had it? I’d needed release, I’d needed blood, and I’d taken it. I liked Kash, wanted to get to know him, was attracted to him, but had the moment in the tent been more than just sex? I was too tired to figure it out right now. How could I convince him if I wasn’t sure myself? I’d speak to him in the morning.
Harmon’s hulking frame was still sitting by the fire. He looked up as I approached.
“Hey.” I stood beside him. “Mind if I sleep here for a bit?”
He shifted and opened his legs to allow me to slip between his thighs and lie with my back against his chest.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
I did as he asked even though I doubted sleep would come anytime soon. There was a timer set, a clock ticking, all the metaphorical shit, and my gut told me we were on the losing side.
I hoped, for once, that my gut was wrong.
Nine
“Faster! Move your feet, cadet!” Hyde barked orders at the moonkissed student. “Duck. Nicely done. You, with the buzz-cut, good work.” He wove his way through the trainees sparring with shadow cadets, his blue-green eyes bright as he took in everything.
I studied him from my spot at the breakfast trestle table by the forge. Aidan and Devon sat either side of me, shoveling food into their mouths. The sound of them chewing was kind of comforting.
Hyde had recently cut his hair. It was shorter than ever, so his angular, masculine features stood out even more—the pout of his mouth, the straight line of his nose, and the slash of his brows above dark lashes. I barely even noticed his scars, even though they were his most prominent feature, like battle marks crossing the marble landscape of his face.
There was no denying his fey heritage. There was no dimming the glowing beauty. All the scars did was accentuate it. Weird, but true.
He turned his head to look my way, and I tucked in my chin quickly, feigning intense interest in my bowl of cereal.
“Give it up, Justice,” Devon drawled in his habitual rumble. “He knows you’re watching. He knows you want him, and he wants you.”
I dropped my spoon into my bowl. “Yeah, that’s the fucking problem.”
“He’s not your teacher anymore,” Aidan said. “Go fuck him, what does it matter?”
They didn’t know about Orion’s law. And it wasn’t something I could tell them about.
“I can’t. And I can’t tell you why. You just need to trust me that me and Hyde are never going to happen.”
Aidan lifted his plate and licked it clean of the final traces of sausages, eggs, and beans.
“Animal,” Devon said.
