Page 55 of You Only Love Twice
Then they were gone.
Gemma's heart pounded as she lifted her gaze to Obsidian's face.Threetimes? How many attempts had thesedhampirmade to kill her?
"We need to get out of here," he breathed, still looking up, completely oblivious to the shock rampaging through her.
But Gemma's heart pounded madly.
Because she finally had some inkling of his intentions toward her.
He hadn't kidnapped her in order to kill her.
He'd done it to keep her safe.
Chapter 13
"Iswear to God this is the last straw," Gemma spat. "You locked me in an abandoned manor, threw me into a bloody well, and now this?Again?"
Obsidian peered into the streets, trying to ignore her, which was particularly difficult when she hit that strident note at the end. "It's for your own good."
"Have I not proved I can be trusted?" Her voice turned pleading, as she toweled her hair dry. They'd washed under a water pump outside, and most of her clothes were still dripping. "There have been a hundred ways I could have escaped you today, but no, I played along."
"Which doesn't negate the fact you were trying to run when I returned to Mably House."
He'd barely managed to return to the manor when he saw the lanterns flickering through the boarded-up windows. Every inch of him had gone cold, and he'd rushed to the observatory.
Only to find it empty.
Somehow his fellowdhampirhad found him, and now they knew he was keeping her safe.
Hell and damnation.What was he going to do?
"Who were we running from?" Gemma demanded, straining against the cuffs that bound her hands together.
That was the problem. She'd always been too smart for her own good. And she'd been furious when he'd hauled the cuffs from his waistcoat, insisting on putting them on her.
"It's none of your business." Obsidian let the curtains fall back into place, flinching as the glare of the afternoon sunlight left bands of white across his vision. He could barely remember the days when he'd been able to stomach the light of day. It was the only thing he missed from his life before his transformation.
Or one of the few things he truly recalled of it.
Sunlight would force his brethren out of action for the day. He'd managed to get the pair of them all the way across the city to a safe house of his own, using the drains to protect himself from the light.
Perhaps he'd known it would always come to this. Some unconscious part of him must have suspected he'd need somewhere safe, somewhere even Silas wasn't aware of.
"None of my b-business? They weredhampir," she said, through chattering teeth. "They were hunting us. Or should I say, me?"
Obsidian turned and surveyed his unwilling captive.
With her black hair tangled and knotted from the water, she should have looked like a drowned rat, but despite her trembling lip and pale skin, Gemma drew his eyes like a lodestone.
"I'm not stupid," she warned, her lips almost blue with cold.
No. Never that.
"And Iwilld-discover the truth."
"Turn around," he told her, unlocking one of the cuffs from her wrists and then snapping it to the exposed pipe on the wall before she could take advantage of his empathy.
"You don't need the cuffs. I couldn't run even if I w-wished to," Gemma told him through chattering teeth. "Besides, it seems a forgone conclusion you'd catch me before I took two steps. You're faster than I am, unhampered by wet skirts, and you blindfolded me for the last part of the journey, so I have no clue where we even are right now."
