Page 6 of Phantom Mine

Who knows what my path would have been if none of this had happened.

It doesn’t matter.

Thisis my reality. I don’t care about the cost or the consequences—I will find Adriana’s body, I will identify her killer and I will get bloody revenge for her and our family.

“I’m enjoying watching you wrestle with what is clearly a very difficult decision for you,” a teasing voice drawls from behind me. “But I’m a little impatient. Do you think you’re going to go in?”

Seems I was being watched after all, but I don’t jerk in surprise. I simply look over my shoulder and stare straight into the shadows.

Whatissurprising is the heat that crawls under my skin at his voice. Sparks of electricity whisper across my flesh, arousing every part of my body to this stranger’s attention. This is a completely foreign reaction, one I haven’t felt in a long time, and it instantly has me on guard.

A figure separates from the shadows, tall and looming, moving with the grace and precision of a panther.

A violent shudder runs through me, and I just manage to hide it from him. Everything in my body is screaming at me to be careful, although I don’t sense danger of the physical kind.

Not yet at least.

His face is still purposefully hidden in the shadows. Now that he has my attention, he takes one final step, walking out of the darkness and into the ray of light cast from the lone bulb in the alley.

Whoever he is, he doesn’t look like he belongs. The alley is wet from the earlier rain. The smell of trash permeates, offending my olfactory receptors. The stream of light reflects off puddles of oil leaked from passing cars. If I sharpen my hearing, I swear I can pick up the faint scurrying of rats from one dumpster to the next.

We’re standing near the back entrance of the club, surrounded by a tapestry of the dirtiest things the city has to offer and he’s… clean.

No, he’s pretty.

Toopretty.

Perfect cheekbones. Soft, gorgeous, full lips. God, hislips. If I can internally gasp at them from where I’m standing, then they must be something to behold up close.

He has a full head of dark, slightly curly hair that’s perfectly coiffed except for a couple of rebellious locks resting on his forehead. Tan skin that hints at months spent on the coast, soaking in the sun by the sea. I can almost imagine the ocean breeze ruffling his hair, making him look just that little bit less perfect. And yet something tells me he’d look just as pretty a little rumpled.

Oh fuck, now I’m imagining him in a bed.

It’s the lack of sex. It must be.

It’s been years. My sex drive was amongst the parts of me that died that night and I haven’t had even the faintest yearning or interest in a man since.

Thirty seconds in a dirty alley with a stranger who could very likely turn out to be a mentally deranged psycho and my stunted libido comes roaring back to life from her vegetative state.

Unbelievable.

I tell myself to focus, but then a fresh smell wafts over to me. The mix of salt and citrus — lemon, nograpefruit— dazes me. All of a sudden, I can’t smell the rain or the trash or even the oil. My senses have been kidnapped on a voyage to Italy, and they’ve taken my clear-headed thinking with them.

He’s tall, very tall, with wide shoulders wrapped in a perfectly fitting smoky gray suit. He’s pristine in a Tom Ford model kind of way. It’s only when I finally peer into his startling green eyes that I see the first bit of edge to him. As model-like as he may seem on the outside, his shrewd gaze sends a telling shiver down my spine.

Unlike every other man I know, danger doesn’t immediately ooze off him. He’s more contained, more controlled. Too pretty to be mucking around in the dirt of this world. But the ease with which he blends in with, then separates from the shadows belies my assumptions. His outward exterior may appear more welcoming than that of others in the Underworld, but he’s just as dangerous, if not more so than the men I grew up around whose bodies sing their bloodlust. His ability to merge seamlessly, bending the darkness to his command, reveals that he does in fact belong.

His exterior lies as much as mine does. He’s nowhere near as harmless as he sets out to appear.

He seems caught up in his own equally in-depth study of me, his eyes trailing slowly down the length of my body as he takes in my hoodie, leggings, and sneakers. His gaze moves just as unhurriedly, just as deliberately, back up my body as it did on the way down, his eyes shadowing as he takes in my open throat, my slightly parted lips, my own steadfast gaze back at him.

I swear I see the flash of something in his eyes, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving me to think I imagined it. Hetakes a step towards me, then another, the tension growing as he draws closer until less than ten feet separate us.

This close, I can feel dangerous undertones rolling off him in crashing waves that say ‘don't get caught in a dark alley alone with me’, and yet, here I am.

“Who are you?” he asks in a low voice that speaks intimately to the darkest, most corrupt parts of me.

But I’m not so easily swayed, and I’m certainly no longer distractible. I learned my lesson.

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