Page 65 of Shadows of Nightshade
Just as I reached out my hand, the office door flew open, and I fell back into my seat.
Damen rushed into the room.
“Bianca!” He spotted me instantly. I bit my bottom lip,hoping that he hadn’t just witnessed my actions. But my focus then shifted to Damen’s messy appearance. His assured features were frazzled in worry, and his hair was windblown and tangled.
“Are you okay?” he asked, closing the distance between us. A brightness sparkled under the bright dome light, and my attention was briefly captured by the golden necklace that peeked from his unbuttoned neckline.
Seeing him made me feel weightless and calm. Everything had been so dark before, but now that Damen was here, it was so much brighter.
It would be okay. Damen could totally beat Bryce in a fight.
“What did he do?” Damen asked, reaching for me. My head was spinning, so maybe I was imagining it, but there was something different about the way he looked at me today.
He pressed his thumb over the puffy skin under my left eye, and his jaw was tight as he studied my face. “Maybe we should have kept you home.” He was speaking more to himself than to me, but I was able to read his lips easily enough.
Was he talking about his house? It wasn’t my home…
Yet my pulse still raced.
The moment was shattered as Damen’s touch was pulled away. Bryce had determined it was necessary to remind us of his presence.
“What are you doing here, Abernathy?” Bryce reached across the desk, his tight fist holding onto the onmyoji’s wrist. “You’ve no right to meddle in fae business.”
“I don’t care if she’s fae.” Damen gritted his teeth and leveled a fiery snarl at Bryce. “I’m not going to let you hurt her.”
Bryce’s expression dropped and he released Damen’s arm.
“Hurt her?” he asked, bracing his shoulders. “What in the world are you talking about?” His voice hinted at genuine confusionand offense. His eyes shone in annoyance as he added, “You should know I wouldneverharm a woman.”
Damen had certainly struck a nerve.
“Besides, I’m not the one who hurt her,” Bryce continued, looking toward my face. My mouth went dry, and I swallowed, raising my hands to cover my cheek.
What was this foreboding in the atmosphere?
But his attention did not linger. A weight lifted as he returned his fury toward Damen. “But now it makes sense if you’re involved. Obviously, this is your fault somehow.”
Damen’s piercing glare dulled as his form loosened, and he did not respond.
It was jarring. Damen had arrived with such aggression, yet somehow Bryce’s statement had rendered him speechless. In fact, Damen looked positively heartbroken.
Something began to swell in my chest. How dare Bryce hurt him.
My chest pulsed and an electric current moved down my arms. I was wagging my pointer finger in Bryce’s face before I could process my own actions.
“Don’t talk to him like that!” I chastised him. “Damen would never hurt me!” Bryce opened his mouth, but I cut off his response, “Besides, it was a ghostthat attacked me.”
“A ghost?” Bryce eyed my finger. “But I’d gotten them all. Where was it?”
How absurd. Ghosts weren’t things to be collected.
Besides, they were also infinite. How would you even measure the success of such an endeavor? Ghosts could also be very tricky and good at hiding.
I had a response ready on the tip of my tongue but hesitated as the details of my witty retort blurred, and my stomach dropped.
I was yelling at Bryce—very aggressively, too. What was I going to say again?
“You don’t need to worry about it. We don’t need your help,” Damen answered. He moved behind me, and it was impossible to ignore the way his larger frame towered over mine. I might have been afraid in any other situation, but Damen and I were of one mind—one being—against a common foe.
