Page 85 of Phoenix Falling
The next thing I knew, my head slammed back into the wall as Sun took my mouth with no mercy. His tongue delved deep, his hand gripping my jaw to hold me in place. I had no choice but to open for him, to surrender. And to admit, down deep where he’d never find it, that this was what I’d wanted all along.
The kiss seemed to go on and on, and I wasn’t fighting it. Not until someone at the door to my cell cleared their throat.
Nala. She was the only female nearby, so it had to be her. Sun jerked back.
If it had been Grim, I knew without a doubt that Sun would have dismissed the shifter and kept right on with whatever he was doing. Me, specifically. But no matter how much I wanted it, I couldn’t give in. My heart wouldn’t survive another round.
“My king.”
Just that, his title. Nala didn’t need to say anything else. Sun straightened, his gaze shuttered so that I couldn’t read him. Without a word, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.
I didn’t move.
Nala preceded him, but when Sun reached the door, he stopped. Tipped his head as if he would look back at me, but never quite met my eyes. His mouth opened, and I waited for his final words.
His lips closed. Without speaking, he walked through the door and slammed it shut behind him.
ChapterThirty-Two
RAINE
It always amused me to imagine Risk living in such a cookie-cutter, bland apartment complex. Risk was definitely not bland, and she was about as far from cookie-cutter as it was possible to get. Even now, worried as I was, thinking of her made me smile.
But not for long. I’d been trying to get ahold of my friend for two days, and for two days, nothing. Something was wrong, I knew it.
Mostly Risk came to my place, probably because, small and plain as it was, it was downright homey compared to the studio Risk maintained here. But she hadn’t shown up last night after no answers to texts and, later, phone calls, all day. I didn’t like being out this late in the evening, but I couldn’t wait any longer. Now the cement stairs stretched up before me, three flights of darkness, and I could barely breathe wondering what awaited me at the top.
The light on the third-floor landing was out again. Why the super couldn’t keep the damn thing fixed, I didn’t understand. The thought of Risk coming up here in the dark all the time made me want to heave. I angled my phone up at the nonfunctioning bulb and glared at it through the beam of my flashlight app before crossing to the door farthest from the stairway and pausing a moment. No light in the single window looking out onto the landing, no movement, no noise. Where the hell was she?
My knock on the door reverberated through the empty landing area like a gunshot, so loud it made me jump. Trying to ignore the thumping of my heart in my throat, I leaned an ear against the flimsy metal door, praying for the sound of footsteps or voices or even a radio on the other side.
Again, nothing.
Why hadn’t I insisted Risk give me a key? What if she was in there right now, needing help, and couldn’t call out to me? I had no idea how to jimmy a lock, and long minutes of yanking and fiddling produced no results. Another phone call went unanswered, and though I strained, I couldn’t hear ringing inside the apartment.
Afraid the noise I was making might draw complaints, I finally sat on the stoop to wait. An hour passed, then two, but no Risk. If I waited much longer, I would miss the last bus. But I wanted answers. Waiting as late as possible, I stayed to the very last second before reversing my trip up the stairs, worry dragging at my footsteps. At this point I was out of places to look. She didn’t own a car, so the shadowy parking lot was of no help. As far as I knew, Risk was either with me, at her apartment—where she not only slept but worked—or at the club I visited with her on a rare Friday night out, and it wasn’t Friday. The only other place I knew to look was at the hospitals.
Just the thought of calling around to see if she’d been injured and admitted to a hospital somewhere had me tearing up, which was why I didn’t notice the group at the bus stop until I was almost on top of them.
Unfortunately they’d noticed me.
Four men, younger than me maybe, though not by much. They were clustered around the bench, ragging one another loudly as they jostled among themselves in a half-joking manner. Young men with nothing but bravado on the brain—and sex, probably, which definitely didn’t bode well. I didn’t want to be a target for that kind of boredom, but when I tried to pass behind the shelter, hoping to move on to the next stop before the bus showed up, the one facing my way through the plexiglass must have noticed me—or more likely, my gender—because he was at the other end of the bench, directly in my path, before I could get past.
I jerked to a stop.
“Hey, baby.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes, though I didn’t drop them. Meet them head-on, that was always the advice, right? Looking at the ground meant weakness; staring them in the eye meant strength. “Move out of my way.”
Something tangled in my hair, and when I twisted my head in that direction, I saw it was a dirty finger attached to an equally dirty guy. He was leering down at me from one side, a friend/rival on the other, and a quick look back told me the fourth was behind me, because of course he was. Part of me was relieved they were mere humans and not the kind of threat I’d faced once before—the kind there was no getting away from—but I was street smart enough to know a group like this could be big trouble if no one was around to witness it.
Reaching up, I caught my hair in a fist and yanked it back. “Leave me alone.”
The guy on my left grabbed my arm. I went with the pull, elbow leading the way, and jabbed it into his ribs. The night was cool, but his jacket was thin. The thrust had him stumbling back into the bus shelter. I beelined it for the gap he left behind.
Dude Number One stepped right back in front of me.
“Where you goin’ in such a hurry?”
