Page 17 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
“I’ll come,” I say, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “But you were worried I was Sector just a few minutes ago. Now I’m getting invited to Sunday dinner?”
Wyatt’s mouth—fuck, I have got to stop looking at this man’s mouth—moves into a resigned sort of frown. “Yeah,” he says, ducking his chin for a moment before meeting my gaze again. “Pretty sure you’re not. But the thing is, I gotta check you for a Sector tracker before the dinner invite’s official.”
My mouth goes dry as I think about the bug on Mr. Rabbit’s button eye. What if I missed something from my apartment? What if there’s something sewn into the collar of my coat or tacked to the bottom of my boots, and this man’s rough warmth turns into something else entirely when he finds it?
“A tracker?” I ask, feigning ignorance, though the last bit of his phone call with Fallon replays in my mind.
“Sector tags its agents,” he says. “Always in the same place, though. Left forearm. It’s not particularly comfortable to havesomeone digging around for it, but I promise it’ll be a hell of a lot better for me to do it than Fallon.”
I resist the urge to wrap my arms around my torso. Wyatt doesn’t think I’m insane. If anything, he’smoreinsane than me. Not only does he subscribe to my fringe conspiracy theory, but he’s also apparently a hedgerider. I didn’t realize that sort of thing existed outside of folklore. In my circles, I’ve occasionally seen people make this sort of claim, but it’s always folks who seem more interested in pretending they’re something they’re not than exposing government lies with cold, hard science.
I swallow, pulling the collar of my jacket tighter. Wyatt’s not pretending. Those sigils on the window are the real deal. The titles on the bookshelves are mostly anthropological and folkloric, plus a few worn medical texts. Those knives are well-used.
And he’s…dangerous. Not in the way I’m used to, all cheap suits and tinted sunglasses. Not even dangerous with too much wealth, too much privilege—dangerous like Aston and all the men of his ilk are, because they think the world is theirs to plunder.
Wyatt’s dangerous in another way entirely. One I haven’t quite figured out. One that excites me for reasons I’m absolutelynotgoing to investigate.
“Do you have to, like, slice me open or anything?” I ask with a choked laugh. I try to sound cool, blasé, as if such a thing wouldn’t even bother me.
I absolutely don’t sound that way.
I half-expect Wyatt to mock me, but instead he gives me this little smile that I don’t understand. I like it anyway. “Nah,” he says with a shake of his head. “Why don’t you sit down, Miss Blythe?” He pulls out an overstuffed chair clad in chestnut-brown leather and gestures toward it. “You just gotta hold outyour left arm, palm up. I’m gonna press real hard to feel around for the tag.”
This is insane. I’m in a stranger’s house. He just made me a BLT. A really fucking good one, to be specific, and now he’s talking about Sector and implants and the Fey. Or Them, apparently.
For once, I’m not the craziest person in the room.
“Okay,” I say, sliding out of my jacket and tossing it across the back of the chair. Then I settle down onto the worn leather, swallowing hard.
He gets down on one knee in front of me, his muscular thighs straining against his jeans, and I promptly blush so hard that my face feels a thousand degrees hotter than the rest of my body. “You know, if IwereSector, it would be really easy to kick you in the face right now.”
“Well, Miss Blythe,” Wyatt says, looking at me as I roll up my sleeve, “I’m sincerely hoping you make better choices.” Something glitters in his eyes. My stupid, traitorous stomach flops.
“Good choices are not really in my repertoire lately,” I admit, holding my hand out. I steady my elbow against the arm of the chair.
“That much is obvious,” Wyatt says with a gruff laugh. “Sorta like that about you, though.”
He wraps one large hand around the top of my forearm before I’ve prepared myself. His palm is callused, warm, his fingers strong, and I fail to stop myself from thinking about what his hands might feel like on other parts of my body.
Luckily, pain cuts that daydream short. I let out a gasp, going rigid, as Wyatt presses his thumb into the middle of my forearm with what I assume is a good portion of his considerable strength.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“You alright?” he asks, his gaze sliding to mine. It’s too much, the way he’s taken a knee at my feet, how his head is bowed over my body, how I barely remember the last time I slept with somebody sober and actually had a good time. How I barely remember the last time I felt like I actually had abody, not just a vessel for my brain and all its machinations.
“Fine,” I say through clenched teeth as he pushes deeper, sliding his thumb up my tendons. I’m caught somewhere between the pleasure of an attractive man’s bare skin on mine and the sharp pain digging its teeth into me. It feels like this search for a Sector tag takes forever, but then it’s done and Wyatt’s no longer touching me.
For a too-long moment I’m not proud of, I wonder if I’d suffer the pain to feel his skin against mine again.
“Well, not Sector,” he says, straightening to his full height.
“That’s great to hear, because it would’ve been news to me,” I reply, shooting to my feet. “Okay. Your turn.”
I smile and point at the chair. Wyatt looks at me, one brow arching. We just met, so I’m probably wrong, but it almost seems like he’s trying very hard to avoid showing that he’s amused.
“My turn, Miss Blythe?” he asks in a drawl that’s thick and sweet, just like molasses. “You’re inmyhome. Invited tomysister’s dinner. Inmytown. On landmyfamily protects.”
“That’s a shame,” I say with a fake pout. “Kinda pegged you as a feminist, you know? Thought you’d be about equality. Seems only fair I make sure you’re not Sector, either.”
