Page 47 of Land of Shadow

“Well, your roots are showing,” he claps back.

“Fair.” She shrugs.

“So, I guess we’ve all decided I’m the most attractive?” Gretchen grins.

“Standing right here,” Wyatt chimes in wryly and spins a record with a song about someone being too sexy for this and that.

I laugh and so does everyone else. The temperature in the room seems to settle a few degrees, whatever disastrous argument we were heading toward artfully avoided thanks to Gretchen and Wyatt.

Aang shrugs. “But let’s be real. She’s not going to be able to honey anything out of anyone in this state. She’d need?—”

The lab door opens, and Gene pokes his head in. “Lunch.”

“Thank god.” Gretchen rolls past. I couldn’t agree more. There’s no way I’m going to listen to Aang’s rundown of everything wrong with me.

“I’m serious, though.” Evie takes my arm so we trail behind the others. “The honeypot. If you’re down for it, that might be the way to get what we need.”

“That’s the problem.” I sigh. “Aangmayhave a point.” I glance down at my holey Green Day t-shirt and too-big sweatpants. “I don’t think I’m down for it, and he definitely isn’t.”

“Gay?” she asks.

“No, at least, I don’t think so. I mean, maybe? Hmm.” Then I remember how he acted when Gage was in my apartment. He was—and I’ve been wrestling with this ever since—jealous. That had to be why he went so damn psycho. But why would he think he has any claim to me whatsoever? At best, we’re deeply reluctant business partners. Nothing more. “Valen’s just… He’s just … rude. And cold. And arrogant. And, and …” I have a lot of things I call Valen in my mind, none of them pleasant.

She tsks. “That doesn’t mean anything. He’s a man, right?”

“No. He’s not. He’s something else, but we’re no closer to figuring out what.”

“Let me rephrase. He’s a male?”

“Definitely.” I think about the way he prowls around my apartment, the feral intensity of him. There’s no softness in him. He’s stark—a black and white painting of a slaughterhouse. But he’s also beautiful. Even I can admit that. The lines of his face, the power in his body. He may be painted in harsh strokes, but he’s art, nonetheless.

“Is he into you at all?”

“No,” I answer quickly.

Her eyebrows rise in clear suspicion. “Are you certain about that?”

“I honestly have no idea. I don’t understand him at all.”

“Sounds like heisinto you. Then you can get to him. You can get him on our side and pillow talk him into giving a live sample. For the cause. I mean, if you’re comfortable with doing that, of course. I’m not trying to, you know?—”

“Pimp me out?” I supply.

“I was going to say ‘push you’, but if the purple platform fits…” She smiles then squeezes my arm. “Just think about it. I could be reading way too much into the situation, or maybe I’ve read too many spy novels. But what if it works? What if you give him a little something-somethin, and then he gives you everything?”

My face is tomato-red at this point. Hot as the surface of the sun.

She shrugs. “If you don’t want to, we’ll find another way. Come on, let’s eat.”

* * *

I’m still thinkingabout the honeypot gambit when the familiar sound of the elevator opening pulls me from my musings. He’s late. It’s been hours since sundown.

“I haven’t found the cure. Feel free to leave,” I call out. I’m not in the mood to see him, especially not when my thoughts are consumed with ridiculous ideas of how to entice him into my honeypot.Inward groan.

“Seriously, there’s nothing.” I close my book, not that I was paying any real attention. I’ve read the same paragraph on mitochondrial myopathy three times over and still have no idea what it says. “Just go. I’m not in the mood for your glaring contest tonight.”

Valen stumbles into my living room, blood soaking through his gray shirt.

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