Page 155 of Defiant Beta

I smile at him. “Only a little.”

“Where’s Kylian?” I ask when he looks poised to ask me about my near death.

Cian flicks an unreadable glance at Levi. “He had an errand to run, but he’s fine.”

I glance at Levi and Cian, but they do too good of a job at silently communicating with each other.

Vincent kisses my forehead, distracting me, and when I note the sadness in his eyes, my stomach clenches. “What? What is it?”

“You need to go with Cian back to your sister’s house.”

“But I thought…” He just dove off a building to save me, and all of them held me, as if none of them wanted to let go. It felt like the start of forever. Now he’sditchingme?

Cian moves away, giving us privacy.

“It isn’t what you think,” Xavier says with a reassuring smile.

“Vincent started something, and it’s taking all his focus to finish,” Levi explains. “And I’ve been busy with something as well.”

“Too busy for me?” I hate myself for sounding so pathetic.

“Not too busy for you.” Vincent smiles slightly. “But this is important, and we want to do things right.”

Chapter 46

Della

The next morning,I’m pretending to be asleep when my bedroom door creaks open and Everleigh whispers, “Della?”

I lie still and wait for her to leave.

The door snicks closed. Any hope I had that my sister would be on the other side of it evaporates as her soft footsteps move toward my bed.

The sheet rises, letting in a waft of cool air. The bed dips slightly, and the sweet scent of vanilla warns she is super close.

“I know you’re faking,” she says.

I snore.

She pinches my nose, and I struggle to breathe, snapping my eyes open to knock her hand away. “Hey! Quit trying to kill me.”

She regards me steadily from the other pillow.

It’s the first time I’ve seen her since Cian drove me to the Pack Ashe mansion, and I pretended I was too tired to speak to her.

I spent last night in an elegant bedroom with plump feather pillows and soft sheets, but I’m no more rested than before I turned out the lights.

“So…” she drawls.

“So?” I pretend I have no clue what she wants to talk to me about.

“Cian and Kylian said you had something going on with Pack Madden.”

“I might have.”

“And?” She looks like she’s getting ready to burst out of her skin with excitement.

“I don’t know.”

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