Page 70 of Calming the Storm

I didn't want to summon Urufu, Mizuko, or Chiryoshi since I didn't want Erica knowing I had the watch on me. Even if she was on our side, that didn't mean I needed to show her all my cards.

I made my way into the forest on my assigned side, glad to have a moment of peace and not having to listen to Erica moaning over her nails.

Talk about obsessive much.

"So you survived."

I stopped in my tracks at the familiar voice and took a deep breath.

"And you must be bored from stalking us the whole time," I replied, turning my head to see James.

He wore a mostly black outfit. The black dress shirt had a weird red symbol on it and was paired with black jeans.

He also had a red scabbard attached to his belt. His red hair was styled to one side, and his red eyes were locked on me and filled with longing, making a slow descent down my body.Something I would only see when he was drunk.

"You've become more perceptive. How long have you know that I was following you two?" James asked.

"I realized about an hour and a half ago, when Erica was complaining about her nails for the eighteenth time," I revealed.

"Ya. She's a little addicted to her nails." James rolled his eyes, looking irritated at the sheer mention of nails.

"How would you know?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

"I've been following her and those useless guards all week. The Emperor calls those his best, but they don’t even notice when they're being tracked. Could have killed all of them and kidnapped Erica after the 30th time she mentioned her nails, but I felt nice that day,” he confessed, slowly walking towards me.

I kept my posture relaxed even as he got closer.

My Kitsune eyed him like a hawk, but I was hesitating because my instincts weren't going all crazy. They were just as calm as I was, and I didn’t understand why that was.

"What do you want, James?" I whispered.

"Just checking in. See, a little bird told me someone similar to Storm was around those guards of yours and had gone on their honeymoon with that anger management guy," he revealed.

"Quillian doesn't have anger management issues." I rolled my eyes.

"He calls me Bipolar. I call him an angry asshole," James countered.

"You sound like a child, you know that?" I crossed my arms.

"And I miss you scolding me,” he confessed, stopping right in front of me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I tried to hold back my growing rage. The leaves on the trees fluttered and made a soft sound, but no wind passed.

I didn't allow myself to get distracted, my eyes staying locked on James’ red ones. The eyes that I once loved, the same eyes that watched on in satisfaction when his men carried me to my impending doom.

"You miss me? I almost...no, I did die, because of you," I whispered.

"You don't understand why I'm doing this."

"I don't understand? What is there to understand, James?" I questioned, my anger growing the longer I stared at him.

My heart ached because I'd loved this man, and even after everything he'd done and the sins he continued to commit, a small part of me still loved him.

That was the hardest part of all of this. To acknowledge I hadn't fully moved on from him, even though I thought I had.

"You still love me,” he said quietly.

I looked to the floor and laughed softly at the irony of the situation I was in.

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