Page 104 of Hunter

“Xavier? Why’d you stop?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me. I would have thought he hadn’t heard me if I didn’t notice the way his shoulders stiffened even more from the sound of my voice.

I looked around him and paused as I took in the big man in front of Xavier’s door.

This man was taller than Xavier, probably by a couple of inches, though he wasn’t as wide. That wasn’t to say he was lacking any muscle definition because he wasn’t.

And though there had always been something rough and dangerous about Xavier, this man…

I shivered.

This man was cold and calculating.

I didn’t think any human emotions were hidden beneath his odd, silver eyes.

I had gray eyes myself, but they didn’t look so… inhuman.

Not the way they were on this man.

This man had dark brown hair, a strong nose, scarred arms, heavy-set shoulders, and a distinctive scar running vertically from his cheek, down the light stubble he had around his jawline, past that, ending just as it reached his left collar bone.

It was as if someone had tried to take a knife to this man’s neck.

Had tried to kill him.

That someone obviously didn’t succeed, and something told me things didn’t end well for them.

The dangerous aura that followed this man, which should’ve made me want to run back inside my apartment and hide there, wasn’t what made me still.

No, it was because this man looked very similar to Xavier.

They were related.

His brother or cousin, perhaps.

Probably a couple of years older than him and much more intense, much scarier than any man had the right to be.

I tried to swallow around the dryness of my throat when his eyes landed directly on me from where I was hiding behind Xavier.

I resisted the urge to hide fully behind Xavier.

For some reason, I didn’t want this man to think I was cowering.

His lips quirked up in a vicious smile, and I was struck with a sense of familiarity.

Had I seen him before?

“Ah, so this is where you’ve been spending all your time…Xavier.”

Xavier’s name coming from his lips sounded off. It sounded almost like a question, and his eyes danced with a kind of humor I wanted no part in.

I didn’t like it.

I wanted no part of this man to touch Xavier.

I tightened my hands around his shirt—not even realizing I had grabbed it in the first place, and Xavier took a tiny step back toward me, as if to protect me from the man.

Question was, did I really need protection from the man, or was he just being cautious?

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