Page 6 of Vicious Little Vows
“It’s not that.” He looked away, his jaw tense. “I have seen the way you look at him, Eva. You may claim to hate him, but you obviously feel for him a great deal. I might have been able to argue with myself on that point previously, but I can do so no longer.”
“But I really don’t. We’re connected, yes. But I don’t trust him. Not like I trust you.”
He finally turned his head back toward me, his expression softening. “You trust him a lot more than you did once. That trust may yet grow.”
“Well, he did offer to kill my great grandfather for me.” I’d meant it as a joke, but it came out a little matter of fact.
His brows lifted.
I shook my head. “Not important. What’s important is that you and I are okay.”
His conflicted expression did nothing to allay my worries. It felt like a worm was wriggling through my gut as he spoke. “It is something I will have to come to terms with.”
Okay, not the worst response, but still— “I’ll understand if you can’t. It’s a lot to ask.”
His hands flexed around my arms. “It is my own insecurity causing this…feeling.”
I furrowed my brow. “If you slept with another girl, I would be frothing at the mouth with jealously, even though it would be totally fair for you to do so—” I bit my tongue. “I shouldn’t have said that. If that’s something you want to do—”
“It’s not.”
We stared into each other’s eyes, and I wasn’t sure what else to say.
Gabriel bent his neck, lowering his head to my level, his lips within kissing distance. “We should get back to Mistral and Crispin. They’ll both be worried, and we need to make Mistral aware of what’s happening here.”
I cast one last look at the creeping line of gray. It wasn’t moving quickly and would take weeks or months to spread far, but it wasdefinitelyspreading. “You would think he would sense something like this.” I looked up to see Gabriel frowning.
“Things have been shifting more rapidly,” he admitted. “I’m not surprised this escaped his notice, especially if we are far from the Citadel, which I believe we are.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I gasped, worried for Mistral’s safety. Hells, worried foreveryone’ssafety.
He gently pushed my hair behind my ear, his fingers skimming down my neck. “You have enough to worry about, Eva.” He lowered his lips to mine.
The moment our lips touched, warm magic blossomed between us. With Mistral it was like tiny cool stars, with Sebastian it was a dark aurora—almost overwhelming, but with Gabriel…
It was sunlight and softness—a growing warmth pulsing inside me. Out of all the guys, his warm magic was my comfort, and I really didn’t want to lose it.
I opened my mouth for him, just as he pulled me against his body, one hand pressing into my lower back. I forgot all about the gray trees and living vines.Safe. I was entirely safe. The warm magic was so satisfying I almost forgot to think of the other guys. But as soon as I did, the world blurred.
More prepared for it this time, Gabriel kept me upright as we shifted. It was a good thing too—falling on the hard stone beneath our feet would have hurt a lot more than the grassymeadow. He kept me in his arms, allowing me just enough movement to look around. There was the expected blue glow, but something wasn’t right. The cavern seemed… backwards. And there was no sunlight from the cave entrance, only the glowing water.
“Couldn’t wait for us?” Crispin’s voice sounded from the shadows of the cave.
I turned, spotting him as he stood from a crouch where he’d been observing something carved into the stone. But that hadn’t been there before… He was still dripping wet and in his plaid briefs, making the outline of him so clear that I blushed and turned away.
Gabriel released me further, leaving one hand at my waist to keep me near him. “You never mentioned any cavern down here.” I followed his gaze to Mistral, who was standing near the pool looking down into the aqua glow, his white hair dripping rivulets of water down his bare back.
“It was not here before.” He looked back at us, his gray eyes glinting in the magical light.
I pulled away from Gabriel, spinning a slow circle. “Wait. Where are we?” It was similar to the cave, but this definitely wasn’t it, unless the Bogs had disappeared the entrance.
Crispin moved to stand at my other side. “This cavern is at the other end of the pool. We swam through, then up.”
My chest constricted at his words. “You mean we’re trapped down here?”
He lifted a brow, oblivious to his blond hair sticking out in erratic clumps from the water. “Trappedseems a strong word for it. We swam down here. We need only swim back. There was no reason to panic and travel down to us.”
Mistral joined us. “I’ve a feeling that is not what happened.” He looked at Gabriel for further explanation.
