Opal

Chapter 17

Sometime later, I tried to stretch and when I spoke, my voice was muffled against his chest. “I can’t move.”

His laugh rumbled through me as he loosened his embrace. “This is how we snuggle.”

“I really should head next door soon.” I yawned, not wanting to leave. I was so relaxed I couldn’t feel my toes. “Mom will be home soon.”

“Do you have to leave now?”

I shook my head. We had maybe an hour. I wanted to make her dinner, so another thirty or forty minutes tops. Daemon placed a finger on my chin and lifted it. “What?” I asked.

His eyes searched mine. “I wanted to talk before you leave.”

Anxiety blossomed low. “About what?”

“Sunday,” he said, and my anxiety turned darker. “I know you feel like you got us into this, but you know you didn’t, right?”

“Daemon…” I so knew where this conversation was heading. “We are at this point because of the decisions I—”

“We,” he corrected gently. “Decisions we made.”

“If I hadn’t trained with Blake and had listened to you, we wouldn’t be here. Adam would be alive. Dee wouldn’t hate my guts. Will wouldn’t be running around doing God knows what.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I could go on and on. You get my drift.”

“And if you hadn’t made any of those decisions, we wouldn’t have Dawson back. It was kind of a stupid-smart move.”

I laughed drily. “There’s that.”

“You can’t carry this guilt with you, Kat.” The bed moved as he rose up on one elbow. “You’ll end up like me.”

I peeked at him. “What? An extremely tall and douchey alien?”

He smiled. “The jerky part, yes. I blamed myself for what happened to Dawson. It changed me. I’m still not back to where I was before everything happened. Don’t do that to yourself.”

Harder said than done, but I nodded. Last thing I wanted was for Daemon to worry about the possibility of my future therapy bills. And it was time to get to what I knew he wanted. “You don’t want me going Sunday.”

Daemon took a deep breath. “Hear me out, okay?” When I nodded, he continued. “I know you want to help, and I know you can. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. You can be pretty scary when mad.”

He has no idea, I thought wryly.

“But…if things go south, I don’t want you involved.” His gaze held mine. “I want you to be somewhere safe.”

I knew where he was coming from and I wanted to reassure him, but staying behind wasn’t something I could do. “I don’t want you involved, Daemon. I want you somewhere safe, but I’m not asking you to stay out of it.”

His brows knitted. “That’s different.”

I sat up, smoothing out my sweater. “How’s that different? And if you say it’s because you’re a guy, I’m going to hurt you.”

“Come on, Kitten.”

My eyes narrowed.

He sighed. “It’s more than that. It’s because I have experience. That simple. You don’t.”

“Okay, you have a point, but I’ve also been inside a cage. With that intimate knowledge, I have more reason than you not to get caught.”

“And that’s more of a reason why I don’t want you doing this.” His eyes flared an intense green. A sure sign he was seconds from tapping into his protective-fueled temper. “You have no idea what went through my head when I saw you in that cage—when I hear how your voice still rasps when you get excited or upset. You screamed until there—”

“I don’t need a reminder,” I snapped, and then cursed under my breath. I tried to rein in my own temper. I put my hand on his arm. “One of the things I love about you is how protective you are, but it also drives me crazy. You can’t protect me forever.”

His look said he could and would try.

I exhaled roughly. “I need to do this—I need to help Dawson and Beth.”

“And Blake?” he asked.

“What?” I stared at him. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know.” He moved his arm away from me. “It doesn’t matter. Can—”

“Wait. It does matter. Why would I want to help Blake after what he pulled? He killed Adam! I wanted him dead. You were the one who was, like, turning over a new leaf or something.”

The moment those words left my mouth, I regretted them. His expression went on lockdown.

“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “I know why you didn’t want to…do away with Blake, but I have to do this. It’ll help me get past what I caused. Like making amends or something.”

“You don’t—”

“I do.”

Daemon turned his cheek, jaw clenching. “Can you do this for me? Please?”

My chest ached, because when Daemon said please, which was rare, I knew how much something bothered him. “I can’t.”

Seconds passed and his shoulders tensed. “This is stupid. You shouldn’t be doing this. All I’m going to worry about is you getting hurt.”

“See? That’s the problem! You can’t always be worried about my getting hurt.”

His brow arched. “You’re always getting hurt.”

My mouth dropped open. “I am not!”

He laughed. “Yeah, try that again.”

I pushed at him, but he was a wall of immovable muscle. Infuriated, I scrambled over him, even more furious when I saw the humored glint in his eyes. “God, you tick me off.”

“Well, at least I got you—”

“Don’t even finish that statement!” I snatched up my socks and tights. Rolling them on, I hobbled on one foot. “Ugh, I hate you sometimes.”

He sat up in one fluid motion. “Not too long ago, you were really, really loving me.”

“Shut up.” I moved on to the other leg. “I’m going with you guys on Sunday. That’s it. End of discussion.”

Daemon stood. “I don’t want you going.”

I wiggled up my tights, glaring at him. “You don’t get to say what I can and can’t do, Daemon.” I grabbed one of my boots, wondering how it got all the way over there. “I’m not a frail, helpless heroine in need of your rescue.”

“This isn’t a book, Kat.”

I yanked on my other boot. “No, really? Crap. I was hoping you skipped to the end and would tell me what happens. I actually love spoilers.”

Spinning around, I left and went downstairs. Of course, he was a step behind me, one giant shadow. We made it outside when he stopped me.

“After everything that went down with Blake, you said you wouldn’t doubt me,” he said. “That you would trust my decisions, but you’re doing it again. Not listening to me or common sense. And when this blows up in your face again, what am I supposed to do then?”

I gasped, backing up. “That’s… That was a low blow.”

He placed his hands on his hips. “It’s the truth.”

Tears stung my eyes, and it took a couple of seconds to get the next words out. “I know all of this is coming from a good place, but I don’t need a friendly reminder of how badly I screwed up. I totally know. And I’m trying to fix that.”

“Kat, I’m not trying to be a dick.”

“I know, it just comes easily to you.” Headlights peeked through the fog, coming up the road. My voice was hoarse when I spoke next. “I’ve got to go. Mom’s home.”

I hurried down the steps and across the gravel and hard, frozen ground. Before I reached my own porch, Daemon appeared. Stopping short, I sputtered, “I hate when you do that.”

“Think about what I said, Kat.” His gaze flickered over my shoulder. Mom’s car was almost here. “You have nothing to prove.”

“I don’t?”

Daemon said no, but it didn’t seem like it when he said he expected everything to blow up in my face again.

…

Tossing and turning, my brain wouldn’t shut down. I replayed everything that had gone down from the point I’d stopped the branch in front of Blake to the moment I found Simon’s bloodied watch in his truck. How many times had there been signs that he was more than what he said he was? Too many. And how many times had Daemon stepped in and tried to talk me out of training with Blake? Too many.

I flipped onto my back, squeezing my eyes shut.

And what had he meant about Blake? Did he really think I wanted to help him and for what purpose? The last thing I wanted to do was breathe the same air as Blake. There was no way Daemon could be jealous. No. No. No. I’d have to spin kick him in the face if that was the case. And then cry, because if he doubted me…

I couldn’t even think about that.

Only one good thing had come from the mess—Dawson. But everything else was… Well, it was the reason I couldn’t sit back and twiddle my thumbs.

I turned onto my side, punched my pillow, and forced my eyes to stay closed.

At the crack of dawn, I drifted off for what felt like seconds to only face the sun creeping through my bedroom window a minute later. Pulling myself out of bed, I showered and changed.

A dull ache had taken up residency behind my eyes. By the time I got to school and grabbed my books out of my locker, it hadn’t faded like I’d hoped. I shuffled into trig and checked my phone for the first time since last night.

No messages.

I dropped the phone back into my bag and rested my chin in my hands. Lesa was the first one in.

Her nose wrinkled when she spotted me. “Ew. You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“You’re welcome. Carissa has the bird flu or something. Hope you don’t have it.”

I almost laughed. Since Daemon had healed me, I hadn’t even sneezed once. And according to Will, once mutated, you couldn’t get sick, which was why he had tried to force Daemon to mutate him.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Probably that club you went to.” She shivered.

Warmth danced along my neck, and I averted my eyes like a wuss as Daemon took his seat behind me. I knew he was staring at me. He didn’t say anything for about sixty-two seconds. I counted them.

He poked me in the back with his trusty pen.

I twisted around, keeping my face blank. “Hey.”

A single brow arched. “You look well-rested.”

He, on the other hand, looked like he normally did. Freaking perfect. “Got tons of sleep last night. You?”

Daemon popped the pen behind his ear and leaned forward. “I slept for about an hour. I think.”

I lowered my gaze. I wasn’t happy that last night sucked for him, too, but at least it meant he was thinking about it. I started to ask, but he shook his head. “What?” I said.

“I haven’t changed my mind, Kitten. I was hoping you had.”

“No,” I said, and the bell rang. One last meaningful look, and I turned around. Lesa shot me a weird expression, and I shrugged. Wasn’t like I could explain why we were only exchanging a few syllables today. That would be an entertaining conversation.

When the bell rang, I debated on making a run for the door but reconsidered when two denim-clad legs filled my peripheral vision. I couldn’t stop the tumbling my stomach did, even when I was angry with him.

I was such a loser.

Daemon didn’t say anything as we left or when we parted ways, and after each class he appeared out of freaking nowhere. The same happened before bio, and he walked with me up the stairs, eyes scanning over the heads of the students.

“What are you doing?” I asked, finally tired of the silence.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Just thought I’d do the gentlemanly thing and walk you to your classes.”

“Uh-huh.”

There was no response, so I peeked at him. His eyes were narrowed and his lips pinched like he’d just eaten something sour. I went up on my tiptoes and bit back a curse. Blake was leaning against the wall next to the door, head tilted toward us, a cocky smile on his face.

“I dislike him so very much,” Daemon muttered.

Blake pushed off the wall and swaggered over to us. “You guys look chipper for a Friday.”

Daemon tapped a textbook on his thigh. “Do you have a reason to be standing here?”

“This is my class.” He jerked his chin toward the open door. “With Katy.”

Heat blew off Daemon as he took a step forward, staring down his nose at Blake. “You just love to push it, don’t you?”

Blake swallowed nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Daemon laughed, and it sent shivers down my spine. Sometimes I forgot how dangerous he could be. “Please. I may be a lot of things—a lot of really bad things, Biff, but stupid and blind aren’t two of them.”

“All right,” I said, keeping my voice low. People were staring. “Time to play nice.”

“I have to agree.” Blake glanced around. “But this isn’t a playground.”

Daemon arched a brow. “You don’t wanna play, Barf, because we can do that nifty freeze thing and play, right here and now.”

Oh, for the love of backwoods babies everywhere, this wasn’t necessary. I wrapped my fingers around Daemon’s tense arm. “Come on,” I whispered.

A second stretched out and static jumped from his arm to mine. Slowly, he looked at me and then he bent down, planting his lips on mine. The kiss was unexpected—deep and forceful. Stunned, I just stood there as he pulled back, nipping at my bottom lip.

“Tasty, Kitten.” Then he spun, planted his right hand on Blake’s shoulder, knocking him back into a locker. “See you around,” he said, smirking.

“Jesus,” Blake muttered, straightening. “He has anger management problems.”

The faces gaping at us blurred.

Clearing his throat, Blake slid past me. “You should really head in.”

I nodded, but when the warning bell rang, I was still standing there, my fingers placed against my lips.