Page 61 of Creatures that Breathe

The pastels, the crush of the mattress, the apple smell.

Draven’s infected everything.

Cross nods without facing me, his shoulders tense. “You should shower. I won’t heal if I’m busy warming you.”

I screw teasing into my voice, but it hardly works. “Then, by all means, stop. Wouldn’t want you to rely on your shoddy sewing.”

“Not too hot,” he orders. “I’ll find you some clothes that fit.”

“Yours,” I blurt, picturing the guest room and the clothes that might stuff its closets. Gowns and corsets and shackles. “I like yours. Nothing white.”

The look he gives me sets my breath off. “What did you dream about, Leni?”

My stomach sinks. I tear my attention from his mouth to the hands that pulled me from the ocean, the hands that killed for me. “Just … something I never wanted to do.”

14

Cross

HQ Mike-India-Alpha Vesterbrogade 73, 1720 Kobenhavn, Denmark

“There. There … Godsdammit, Sin, Stop! What are we going to do with the popcorn now? Swim in it?” Meda stomps her foot in a hushed thud as I step into the war room, pushing through a hot, buttery haze.

Purple mirrored aviators falling off his nose, Sin’s got his hands stuck up his custom—microwave popcorn on these lips? Do I look like a peasant?—bright red, portable popcorn maker. “Sweetheart, I said say when. You never said it.”

To Meda, sweetheart is a code-red-don’t-expect-to-walk-away-with-your-balls-attached word.

Ironically, Sin’s lucky I’m in a shit-mood and can’t properly enjoy the matchup between them, the two-foot height discrepancy jabs write themselves. “Can we not?” I groan. “I want this over with as fast as possible.”

Meda tosses a glare at me, as if robbed her of one of life’s greatest joys, but stalks silently up the green carpeted risers to her seat.

In every one of our holdings—apartments, lofts, mansions, townhomes like this—the war room is selected using one simple metric—for obvious, had to learn the hard way reasons. Whichever room has the least breakable shit.

This one used to be a home theater until someone sent a seven iron through the massive screen. Rune’s unanimously been accused of the atrocity but since he’s our tech specialist, he wiped the security cams before anyone got proof.

Now the IMAX is a shattered backdrop for Atlas to gather status reports, and the scent of buttered popcorn gives me the urge to scheme.

Kind of like how the scent of spearmint will get me hard for years to come. And honeysuckle. And the ocean, and she’s in my shower right now. Using my soap, my towels. Mine. All. Mine.

Is she? The curse retaliates, jabbing a sharp stab of pain into my ribs. I bite down on my lip.

Give me more. Go ahead. The threat of agony’s the only reason I’m heeding Atlas’s council meeting, and not begging for a shower drain indent on my knee.

Her breathless, I changed my mind had hit my like a starting gun.

The curse held me back. Did she really change her mind?

She’d woken up with hot tears streaking down her cheeks, body wracked with shivers, taken a single look at me and flinched.

Vomited.

Worse than a knife to the spleen. I wanted to raze the world and lay its ashes at her feet. Wanted to vow I’d protect her from ever feeling that way again. But her nightmare, why did I have a sinking feeling it was about me? And it was more prophecy than memory?

Shit.

A sloppy licking sound precedes Sin’s dreamy, “You are killing the vibe majorly. Bitter melon rind and flambéed cherries. You’re giving me vertigo.”

My mental file on Sin flips open unnecessarily in my head. Tastes emotions.

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