Page 35 of Watch Me Burn

I’ll give Conall credit. He puts two and two together, getting four pretty quickly.

“Where were you going?”

Crap. Good one, Bridge. I’m trying to get rid of my magic, right? That’s what I said? And now I left the sanctuary… it doesn’t take a genius to realize that those two things go together.

Just in case, though, I try to put an end to the conversation—and what’s surely to be a continued interrogationwhile he’s freaking naked. “For a walk.”

“You’re lying.”

That’s not technically a lie. I am walking… to the caves. “No, I’m not.”

“You are,” he insists. His nostrils flare. “You stink of it.”

“Are you telling me you cansmellit when I’m being dishonest?”

“It took me a minute. But you have a certain scent when you’re being honest. Like now, when you admitted to being a witch. It changed when you got defensive and shut me down by saying you just went for a walk. One compared to the other… you weren’t being honest.”

He’s not wrong. But since I don’t want to admit that—or be dishonest again—I deflect and change the subject. “My scent? What do I smell like?”

Conall’s brows draw together. I get the sense he knows what I’m doing, but he’s going to allow it.

Gee. Thanks.

He sucks in a breath, exhaling after a long moment. “You smell like heat. Like coals burning. I’ve never come across anything like that before, and I barely get a whiff of it… but I scented it leaving the village right before I tracked you out of it.”

He moves into me, and it takes everything I have not to lower my gaze again as the naked shifter prowls even closer.

“Your friend is a corpse. She smells like rotten meat. That’s not a knock, either,” he adds when I start to argue indignantly on behalf of Elise. “She’s a vampire. They all smell like ice and meat to my wolf. You’re always around her. She overpowered your scent so I could only get teasers of it. If she didn’t, Mayor Lou’s stink did. But it was enough.”

“Enough?” I echo. “Enough for what?”

His golden eyes flash. “To catch my attention.”

“Well,” I say sweetly, “keep it. I don’t want it.”

Conall grits his teeth. “Too late.”

I tilt my chin up, matching his dare. “That’s what you think.”

His gaze roves over my face. His lips part.

Uh.

Is Conall about tokissme?

Okay. I know all about opposites attract. Hate sex? It can be a ton of fun. But just because he’s naked and I’m overheated—because of my fire, damn it—that doesn’t mean that he can make a statement like that and kiss me.

Though, now that I’m thinking about it…

His eyes dart to the left. Moving too fast for me to do anything but clamp my own jaw shut, Conall lunges down, grabbing something from the snow.

He holds it up, looking at it.

Shit. The map!

CHAPTER 12

DANGEROUS

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