Page 61 of Beyond Hate

“Did he say anything?”

“That he thought I was pretty,” I lied. Shit, I was getting too good at that. “And he wanted me to go with him. When he reached for me, I stabbed him. When he heard Til and Gem coming, he ran.”

Renn looked me over like he could tell I was full of shit, but it was mostly true—true enough that he couldn’t question it. True enough that I knew the only evidence that could refute it was the note I’d given to Otto.

For all I knew, he was already halfway to finding the man who’d been in here, halfway to killing him. I didn’twantto know. I just wanted…

“Can I go now?” I wanted to go home, and it wasn’t hard to realize that home wasn’t a place.

Renn looked me over one more time, but honestly… there was no one here. No one was pressing charges. Maybe it looked bad in relation to the dead man they’d found earlier, but if anything, I had to believe it made my story more credible… After all, this was the second man who’d assaulted me while at work… and I was really shit at defending myself.

So.

I guess being kind of helpless could be useful sometimes.

“Don’t leave the area.” He finally relented, and I let out a little snort.

“Where else would I go?”

Anywhere. I wanted to go anywhere that wasn’t here. But for now, I’d settle on going back to my damn hotel room and trying to forget this ever happened.

I was freshly showered and beneath the sheets when I heard the door open. I should have been tense, maybe jumped out of bed. I should have grabbed the knife I’d picked up from a convenience store on the way home and clutched it to my chest… but instinct drove me to lie still as the sheets whispered and someone slid in behind me.

Otto’s arm was warm when it slipped around my waist and moved me so he curled protectively against my back, and I felt something inside me settle. Maybe I couldn’t remember the past, and maybe the fact that we’d been brothers once should bother me… but when he pressed his lips to my hair, I couldn’t find it in me to care.

I guess there were some things that imprinted on your soul and followed you through every life—lying like this with Otto was apparently one of them.

Chapter 22

Otto

Ididn’tsleep.Therestlessnessat what was on the letter London had pressed into my hand with bloody fingers was eating me alive. I’d wanted to ask him about it when I found the hotel he’d rented, but he was so warm and soft, and when he glanced up at me, his eyes wereexhausted.

He’d been through hell and back, and a small part of me could at least acknowledge that I’d dragged him straight to those gates and thrown them wide. I’d do it again if I had to, without question. Without worrying about what it meant.

There was no world where I didn’t have London with me, and I was pretty sure the only way he could get here was on the exact pathway we’d walked.

That didn’t stop me from carefully slipping from the bed when the sun peeked through the curtains and walking to the little kitchenette the cheap room offered.

I was halfway through making coffee that I was sure was going to taste like shit when I heard the rustling of sheets behind me.

“You’re still here.” I wasn’t sure why he sounded so surprised. He was going to be lucky if I let him take a piss by himself at this point, let alone do something like stay in a seedy motel.

“We’re going to find somewhere else to stay.”

He completely ignored me and sat up, and my eyes tracked the way the sheet slid down his chest, the way a bruise was forming at the corner of his mouth where he’d been hit. “Does that mean you’re going tostaystay?”

There was so much weight behind the question, so much meaning that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.

It meant something big to him, whatever my answer was. And I didn’t understand why, because I thought I’d made it clear.

“London, you’d have to kill me to get rid of me now. Haven’t I done enough to prove that you’re mine?” I started toward him, and the way his body instinctively curled back on the bed, the way his fingers clutched at the sheets, made something just beneath my skin tingle, some monster that wasn’t mine ripple and try to surface. I ignored it and leaned in. “I’ll carve my name across your chest if you need me to.”

If I’d ever needed proof that I might have broken London when I took him, the way his eyes widened and his lips parted slightly at the threat would have been enough. I leaned into the bed, tracing his skin slowly with my finger, outlining my name along the line of his collarbone. The low whine that built in his chest was a temptation I didn’t need to give in to, but I couldn’t stop myself from moving closer. “Or maybe I’ll cut myself open and let you carve your name on my heart. If you watched me bleed, would that be proof enough?”

The expression on his face shifted to something less full of heat… I didn’t have any way to describe it other thanwarmthwhen he took my fingers in his and carefully brought my hand to his mouth. “You’ve been hurt enough for a few lifetimes, Otto. I won’t do it again.” He pressed his lips carefully to my fingertips,and I wondered whether he realized that saying things like that, touching me so softly, felt like he was flaying me open anyway.

It cut deeper than any blade, and had the ability to bleed me out faster than any wound.

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