Of course they followed.
Of course they did.
Three sets of steps behind me, careful and too fast at once, because apparently I could not take ten steps away from a crime scene without collecting a private security detail made of trauma and teeth.
Normally, I would have made a joke.
I had nothing.
“Angel.”
Thane’s voice stopped me.
Not because it was loud. It wasn’t. Not because it was a command. Thane did not command me, not even when every instinct in him wanted to wrap me in his body and dare the world to try again.
It stopped me because it was half-broken.
He was scared.
Of me walking away.
Of me needing air.
Of the possibility that air meant distance and distance meant leaving.
Fuck.
I turned slowly and met his ice-blue eyes. He stood a few steps behind me, huge and still
