Page 38 of Guarded By the Phantom

“Threatened to send her to a mental asylum if she wasn’t an obedient daughter.”

There was a short silence and a rustle, then a faint click. He got out of bed and turned on the light.

“You’re right. Sheisa bitch. And you can’t kill her. She is your client,” he said. A faint whisper of his scales sliding on the floor came through.

“I know,” I bit out. “But fuck, Nat. The world is all red. It’s not going away. Why the fuck am I like this? Can you explain it to me?”

He was silent for a moment, and then I heard a loud splashing sound. I closed my eyes, my head pounding with bloodthirst that was like physical pain.

“Are you pissing right now?” I asked, each word bitten out with effort.

“A shehru’s gotta go when he’s gotta go,” he answered over the steady splash. “That’s what you get for calling me after hours.”

I closed my eyes and hit my head against the cold tiles. The thud was loud, my brain jarring a bit from the impact, but it did nothing to dissolve the red fog swarming my vision.

“Don’t give yourself a concussion. We’ll deal with this,” Nat said, another splash of water coming through. He was washing his hands. “You said earlier you desire the girl and feel protective of her, yes?”

I leaned my forehead into the wall, taking deep breaths. Fuck, I needed another smoke.

“But it makes no sense,” I growled, angry with this whole situation. “I’ve known her for two days. And I don’t do this, Nat. I don’t have murderous urges on behalf of other people. I kill out of duty. And for fun.”

He chuckled under his breath, and an infinitesimal amount of tension seeped out of me. I was sogratefulfor Nat. He was a monster, too. He got me and knew my will to eliminate threats was a normal instinct, not something to fix.

And I would justbetBarbara would try to fix it. If she ever deigned to have me, which wasn’t going to happen.

“Well, you got attached to her very quickly,” he said with infuriating calmness. “It’s surprising but not outside the realm of possibility.”

“Not outside the… Do you hear yourself? Abominations don’tget attachedto strangers. We don’t have freaking mating bonds. We’re a reasonable fucking species, and we don’t just sniff someone and decide they arethe one.”

“Well, is she?” Nat asked, his question quick and sly. “The one?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I hissed, some of the pressure finally draining out of my skull thanks to the distraction. When I opened my eyes, the tiles were less red. “First of all, she’s not my type. Secondly, she’s practically royalty. I’m a humble man. And smart enough not to aim for the fucking moon.”

“Humble,” he snickered. “I’ll add a note under self-delusion in your file, shall I?”

“Fuck you,” I said amicably, because he was right. I wasn’thumble.I was, however, smart, and I stood by what I said.

“Talk to me about it,” he said, ignoring my rude reply. “Is the urge to kill like your normal threat response or is it different?”

I focused on the anger, feeling into it. It was like a buzzing in my bones, an electric current running just under my ribs, shocking my heart into a frantic gallop.Faster,faster, it urged.Kill, kill now. Kill to survive.

“It’s similar. It feels almost exactly like the instinct I get when somebody threatens me and I need to eliminate them to survive,” I said, frowning. My vision cleared bit by bit, and even though the craving to wrap my hands around Clarissa Ashford’s throat wasn’t gone yet, it was easier to control.

“Interesting,” Nat said. I heard a rustle of paper and knew he was taking notes. “So your natural self-protective instincts extend to her.”

I exhaled heavily, my breath fogging up the cream tiles. “Yeah. Maybe. Fuck, I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense!”

“That’s okay,” Nat said, his calmness utterly irritating. “All of it happened right now and it’s fresh. It’s okay not to know what it means yet.”

“But I have to know!” I growled, hitting my head on the wall again. “I’m falling, Nat. I’m falling and I don’t know how to stop it! She will trample all over me and I will let her. I will fucking lie down to make it easier and then thank her for the privilege! You get it? This girl will turn me into a doormat. I offered not to smoke when she’s around, for fuck’s sake!”

He hummed thoughtfully, paper rustling as he noted down my words. Nat was a slow, deliberate thinker and liked to take his time with gathering data. Normally, I tolerated it, but tonight, it annoyed me even more than normal.

“You’re not helping,” I complained, retracting my plates until my naked palm rested against the cool tiles.

“Really?” he asked. “How is your murderous rage, then?”

I paused, taking a good look at the bathroom. It was no longer red but faintly pink. Because I was thinking about Barbara, not her ho of a mother.

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