Page 162 of Nothing More

In that first moment, he looked terrifying. Hood pulled up over his head, a few razor-sharp sections of hair framing his face beneath it. Eyes dark, skin pale, lip ring glinting with a stray beam of firelight. In his black clothes, against the black backdrop of the forest, it was impossible to tell his dimensions; he was endless, like some sort of fluid, vengeful woodland deity.

He frightened her, and that left her furious. At him, but mostly at herself. At her own stupidity.

But it was a fury that faded fast, replaced by dread. Because this Toly, chin lifted, expression nearly challenging, wasn’t the man she’d laid down beside last night; wasn’t the one who’d confided his past to her, and smiled at her, and cooked with her. Without question, this was the face of a Kozlov bratva killer.

“Sorry,” she murmured, turned, and attempted to flee in an orderly, non-panicked manner.

She didn’t scream, but she let out an involuntary, sucked-breath sound when a hand closed on her arm.

“Raven, wait,” Toly said, and it wasTolyagain, instead of whoever she’d stumbled upon in the darkness.

She halted; caught her breath. He didn’t bruise her arm, didn’t force her around. He waited, just as she did, until she finally turned around to face him again.

She’d managed a few paces back toward the party, and the light was stronger here; it chased the deeper shadows off his face, revealed more of him – the real him. His brows knitted with concern, his mouth an unhappy slash, his eyes a rich brown, and not the flat black of a breaching shark.

From fury, to fear, and, finally, to anguish. It hurt to look at him, to know how she felt, and know what he was doing; to know what could never be.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, and she thought to deny her fright…but couldn’t.

Just as she couldn’t smile, and offer the mild, playful greeting she’d anticipated using. She’d thought to be pleasant, and unbothered, a little flirty.

Instead, she let everything churning inside her bleed through to show on her face. She didn’t speak, but her expression had him rearing back, eyes widening, nostrils flaring as though she’d tried to strike him.

She snatched a hold of the front of his jacket and held tight to keep him from retreating.

“Raven…” he started.

“Tell me. Darling, justtell me, please. What’s going on? What’s weighing on you?”

Fear sparked in his gaze, paled his face to ghostly hues. His jaw set: stubbornness. He didn’t want to tell her.

She twisted her hands in the halves of his jacket, ground her knuckles into his chest. “It’s not fair. You’re not beingfair. You have this club, you have Ian, you have me – all these people who love you and can help you, and you’re off meeting bloody Mikhail Morozov on your own!”

Oops. Too late, though, because his brows flew up, and then slammed back down, face transforming into a snarl, teeth bared. “How do you know about Misha? Did you–” He inhaled sharply, and his head snapped up, gaze searching the lawn. “Tenny,” he growled. “That fucker, he–” His pectorals bunched beneath her knuckles, as he gathered himself to storm off.

He could have pulled loose, but she tightened her grip, and yanked hard on his jacket. It was a testament to his care that he stayed put, gaze returning to her face, even if it was etched with ire.

“I had him follow you,” she said. “If you want to be angry with someone, be angry with me. I knew you were sneaking out, and I didn’t know where, and I was worried you were going to get killed in some back alley. That I would have to find out about it on the news!”

He exhaled loudly through his nose, his gaze raw and hectic. She could see his pulse throbbing in his throat. Could smell the sharp tang of the fresh sweat that was even now slicking his temples. His chest stuttered under her hands on his next breath.

“Hate me if you want,” she said. “But I’m not some – some Lean Bitch – some bratva whore who’ll sit down and shut up and keep my thoughts to myself. I don’t give a damn what the club’s doing about the gangsters in New York – but I give a great bloody damn if you’re self-destructing, which you are!”

He stared at her. Slowly, his expression shifted, more baffled than anything else.

“I’m not asking as anyone’s sister, or friend, or club ally, or any of that rot. I’m asking as me. As your…” The words got stuck. The words she’d never been able to voice.Girlfriend? Old lady? Partner?

“Raven,” he murmured, breathless. “I can’t…”

“You can. You really can. Please. What are you doing with Misha?”

He agonized. From death’s head mask, his face had transformed into a stripped-bare, mobile portrait of anguish. His eyes glimmered with unshed tears, and the tip of his nose had gone rosy with emotion. It was killing him, walking between worlds, keeping secrets, carrying the weight of it all.

Raven opened her hands, pressed them flat to his shirtfront, between the halves of his jacket, and smoothed them over the fabric, over the frantic knock of his heart. She angled her head, stretched up, and kissed him.

A butterfly press of her lips to his; she felt the way his trembled on his next breath.

His voice a rough scrape: “Don’t manipulate me.” A plea, rather than an order.

---