Page 103 of Watch Me Burn
I’m not crazy.
Damien.
He’s my watcher.
My stalker.
My wolf.
Chapter twenty-five
Luna
I’m curled up on the sofa in the enclosed porch, Shadow’s head resting across my lap. His warmth seeps through my pajama pants, anchoring me while my thoughts threaten to drown me. Juniper, Willow, and Sage have arranged themselves around me in a protective circle. Juni is pressed against my hip, Willow is draped across the sofa behind my head, and Sage is kneading biscuits on the blanket covering my legs. They can sense the fragility of my emotional state, the way animals always can.
The frigid morning air outside seeps through the outdated, single-pane glass panels, which need replacing, but the cold inside me overshadows it. Everything hurts. Every tender spot on my skin and heart whispers something I don't want to hear. My body remembers what happened, my heart knows what it means, but I’m not prepared for either truth.
The tea in my mug turned cold hours ago. I haven’t moved much since dawn broke, since the moment I sent that rambling text to Maren at five-thirty in the morning.
Me
Need you. Come when you can. Everything’s fucked.
My fingers stroke through Shadow’s thick fur as my mind replays the moment over and over like a broken record stuck on the most devastating song ever written.
That kiss. That fucking kiss that unraveled everything I thought I knew about my life, about myself, about the man who’s been claiming my body and soul for months.
Damien.
How could I have ignored my instincts and been so blind? I’m so goddamn stupid. A mask and a disguised voice were all it took to fool me.
Or did they?
From the start, I’ve had these nagging suspicions. But it was so ludicrous that my billionaire neighbor was the same man who stalked, watched, and fucked me. I should have listened to that niggling voice in the back of my head, the one that said it was too coincidental. The timing, their physicality, and that goddamn wolf mask.
Why did I insist on thinking I was just imagining it? Why didn’t I recognize his fingers and tongue when Damien…
Shit! I have to be the stupidest woman on the planet.
But that kiss tore through every lie I’d been telling myself. He kissed me the way Damien did, his lips moving with that same reverence and unbearable tenderness. And I knew. Everything I’d been ignoring or burying or refusing to believe slammed into place at once. Each piece of evidence I’d overlooked or ignored burned through me, impossible to deny, and I nearly fell off my kitchen table.
Shadow lifts his head, ears perked forward, but settles back down when he recognizes the familiar rhythm of Maren’s footsteps as she opens the front door without knocking. Her boots squeak on the hardwood floor as she strides through the house. I can feel her energy radiating through the air, that fierce protectiveness that makes her such an incredible friend and such a formidable enemy to anyone who crosses the people she loves.
I look up when the kitchen door opens, and she steps out before dropping into the chair across from me. She looks fresh and alert in her scrubs, her dark hair pulled back in a messy bun that somehow still manages to look effortlessly beautiful.
Her eyes widen when she sees me. “Jesus Christ, Lu, you look like absolute shit.”
She kicks off her boots and props her feet on the coffee table. I shift and try to look less like the emotional wreck I am.
“Hello to you too, sunshine.”
“Don’t you ‘hello sunshine’ me.” Her voice takes on that dangerous edge when she hasn’t gotten enough sleep or when she and JT are fighting. “What’s going on?” She gestures at my general state of dishevelment with a sweeping motion. Her expression hardens, that protective fury I know so well flashing in her eyes. “What the fuck did he do? Do I need to kill him?” I swallow hard, and whatever she sees on my face softens her. “And don’t you dare try to downplay it or make excuses for him.”
I nod, feeling the sting of tears behind my eyes. “I know who he is.”
Maren sits up straighter, feet dropping to the floor, and her face goes through about seventeen different emotions in the span of three seconds. “Seriously? Did he finally take off that fucking mask?”
“No.” I run a hand through my tangled hair, trying to order my thoughts. “But I know. He kissed me last night. And I just knew.”
