Page 12 of Summertime Hexy
Slowly. Gently.
And he pulls me into him.
No words. No fanfare. Just arms like iron and leather and dusk wrapping around me until I’m pressed against his chest and the panic… quiets.
I freeze.
Derek Virel doesnothug people.
He does not comfort. Hescowlsand lectures and folds towels with military precision.
But he’s holding me now, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like he’s done it before. Like heknowswhat it feels like to break and need something steady to lean against.
And gods help me, his heartbeat is steady.
It’s slow and rhythmic and real. And somehow, I don’t feel like I’m about to fly apart.
I let myself sink into it.
Just for a minute.
Just to breathe.
His voice, when it comes, is low and gravel-soft. “You’re not broken, Hazel.”
My breath hitches.
“You’re tired. And scared. But not broken.”
I don’t say anything.
Because if I do, the not-crying will turn into actual crying and Irefuseto give him that satisfaction.
So I nod.
Tiny.
Silent.
And stay there in his arms, anchored by nothing but the tether and the quiet and the fact that—for some inexplicable reason—this grumpy, ancient, broody vampire is the safest thing I’ve felt in months.
CHAPTER 6
DEREK
Thorn finds me by the perimeter stones at dawn.
He always does this—appears like the wind whispered him in. No footfalls. No shadows. Just the quietsnapof space rearranging itself to accommodate someone too ancient and too calm to be normal.
“Derek,” he says.
I grunt. That’s all I’ve got right now. I’m already half-buried in a sigil repair, crouched low, fingers brushing broken ward lines carved into the stone. Someone—probably a kid with more ambition than sense—tried to etch a new channel into one of the keystones without supervision. The result? A hairline crack in the boundary enchantment that could’ve let in something with too many teeth and not enough logic.
Typical.
Thorn doesn’t comment on the damage. Instead, he studies me like I’m the one with the fracture.
“You’ve been distant,” he says.
