Page 38 of Hunt the Dusk
The fire smoldering between us died. I stared at him, hearing the words, comprehending them, but not believing that they could mean what they should mean.
“You wouldn’t kill me.”
A look of pure torment skated across his features. “Yes. I will. It’s how it ends. It’s part of my curse. The beast consummates and then…then it consumes.”
Consumes… “You’lleatme? Wait…how can you know unless…Oh…”
His eyes glazed over. “It was a long time ago. The first and only time. She was…she was wonderful.” He looked downat his hands. “I woke to her blood on my hands, beneath my fingernails.” He touched his face. “I could taste her flesh between my teeth.” His voice dropped to a growl, and his ocean blues gleamed brighter, but this time it wasn’t desire that heated my veins but the icy prick of fear.
“Ordell?”
He squeezed his eyes closed. “I’m fine. The full moon is two weeks away. I can…I can control it.”
“Like last night?” I hated to do this. To say this but, “Don’t come to my room again.”
He flinched, but I pressed on. “I understand why we need to stay away from each other. If we both stick to the rules, then it’ll be fine. I’ll stay at the chapter house during full moon periods.”
“Ezekiel won’t like that.”
“Leave him to me.”
He nodded stiffly, shoulders slumping. “It could have been different for us,” he said. “If the beast hadn’t taken your scent, then we could have been lovers.”
He had no idea how impossible that was, and Order law prohibited me from telling him. “We can still be friends, Ordell. I want us to be friends. I care about you. A lot.” My eyes heated, and I blinked sharply to dispel the threat of tears.
He lightly touched my cheek. “I care about you too, Orina. More than I should, which is why it would kill me if I ever hurt you.”
I gently cupped the back of his hand and pressed my cheek to his palm. “We’ll be fine. I know it.”
The space in between the words neither of us said was filled with regret because how shitty was it to know you’d found the perfect mate but be unable to claim them?
Ordell was off-limits now for more than my blessed reasons. The threat of being killed by his beast should make it easier to stay away from him.
I hoped.
But only time would tell.
Chapter 13
PADMA
Hyde mansion looms dark and dreadful under a shroud of silence so deep it makes my ears ring even before I press the doorbell, shattering the uneasy equilibrium with its shrill scream.
No one answers. I use the knocker, banging urgently in three lots of three, but once again, there’s no answer.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Edwin says.
“Oh, she’s home, all right. Just avoiding us. She knew I’d find out about her little book coup and come knocking.” I circle the house and find the large earthenware pot parked at the side of it. “Lucky for me, I know where she keeps a spare key.”
Edwin’s boots crunch on the gravel behind me. “She told you?”
“Heck no. I watched her for days before I approached her.” The key is just where I know it should be. We use it to let ourselves into the mansion.
It’s claustrophobically dark in the hallway because all the drapes are closed so no moonlight can get inside. But I’ve been here plenty of times, and mapping spaces is one of the skills we’re taught in the Order. It also happens to be one of my fortes. Edwin falls in behind me as I lead him through the darkness, down a side corridor and a flight of steps to where I know Harriet likes to work and where my many transfusions have taken place.
I call it her dungeon of doom.
She calls it her laboratory.
