Page 28 of Dante's Circle Reborn

“I’m Jonah. I’m friends with Dante. The man you work for.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be working there much longer,” she said, the words out before she could stop them. Her job wasn’t the most important thing to mention, after all.

“Well, we can talk about that later. For now, let’s get you somewhere safe.”

She shook her head and took another step back.

His eyes narrowed, and then he lowered his shoulders as if trying to look smaller, less dangerous. Only she didn’t think he could ever look less dangerous.

“I don’t know if there’re more gorgons around. Clearly, they are after you for a reason,andyou’re running. Let me at least get you somewhere safe.”

“Why?” she asked. Why was he helping her? Why was he here? No one had helped until now. No one until Dante had even given her a job. And now the dragon’s friend was here to help her again? It almost felt like a dream. She was just sotired.

“You know why.”

She did, she could feel it. That one instant of eye contact at the bar and she had known. Known that he was hers, just like she could be his. That he could be her happily ever after, her true half, her mate.

But she didn’t want that. How could she?

She was death personified, the Grim Reaper in all its glory. Of course, she wasn’t an actual legendary reaper that came from the shadows of time and myth. No, she was a murderer. She was the hand of death.

“Poppy. We need to go.”

She shook her head and then froze when she scented the gorgons on the wind.They were coming.They were following her. They would always come for her.

Because she had broken the most important rule of a Medusa. Honestly, she had broken all the rules in the end. She had no line, no family. She had nothing.

Except for a job given by a dragon who had taken a chance on her.

Jonah cleared his throat. “I have a place somewhere close.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even know you.”

“You know Dante. You saw me with him. We’re friends. You can trust him. You can trust me.”

She shook her head again.

“Then come with me because you know exactly what we are to each other. At least who we have the potential to be. It’s better to be safe under a roof of protection, rather than out here in the open, especially when we don’t know where the gorgons are coming from.”

Those words got to her more than anything. She didn’t know Jonah, didn’t know this man, this jaguar, but maybe she could figure out what she needed to do from somewhere that wasn’t out in the open. Because she didn’t think she should go back to Dante’s Circle. What if she did and the gorgons followed her? They wanted her dead. They wanted her beheaded, the rest of her body burned. Then they wanted to keep that head on a spike or perhaps even a silver platter. They wanted her death to be a symbol, to become something of myth and legend.

The legends had been wrong. Medusa hadn’t been evil, hadn’t been cruel. She had been brutalized. Taken advantage of by the gods who’d once sworn to protect her. And then she had been cast out in sin for the others to remark upon.

The truth didn’t matter to the other gorgons—didn’t matter to the royal line. They wanted Poppy as their new symbol. They wanted her because of her power, and because of what others couldn’t have.

She knew that. She knew that was why they had come after her to begin with. And she knew she couldn’t stop them. She hadn’t been able to fix anything, and right now, she needed to figure out what to do.

Jonah growled, and the sound went straight to places she did not want to think about. She didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have time for feelings or anything that would stop her from running. She was just sotired. That exhaustion made her do the unthinkable. She slid her hand into his and swallowed hard. “Just for a few moments.”

He nodded tightly and then tugged at her arm. They were running then, Poppy trying to keep up with his much longer stride. He was a jaguar, after all. In shifter form, he would be able to outpace her quite easily. In human form, though, it felt like he was just as fast.

Gorgons weren’t the best runners in all the realms, nor were they the best athletes. Personally, she was not the best fighter, either. She’d never had cause to learn. Right then and there, she promised herself that she would train. She didn’t want to be helpless. She hated that. But she hadn’t been raised to be a fighter. She had been a scholar, had been someone who thought she’d had a future. She had been wrong.

“Where are we going?” she panted, annoyed with herself since he wasn’t even the slightest bit out of breath.

“Somewhere close,” Jonah growled out. He looked over his shoulder, and she knew he wasn’t going to tell her exactly where since someone could overhear. This was insane, trusting someone she didn’t know, but she didn’t have a choice. She needed to figure out how to save herself because hiding and running wasn’t working. Clearly. And so, shemoved. She ran.

They turned the corner and kept going until they found themselves in a quiet neighborhood. Jonah leapt over a fence near the end of one street, and she just blinked at the wooden planks, wondering what the hell he expected her to do.

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