She looked around for a few seconds and spotted Tristan Caine's muscular bike, her heart skipping for a second before she forced her eyes to move, seeing her car a few feet down to the left. She made her way towards it quietly.
She'd not taken more than two steps before the sound of a door bursting open shot through the silent lot like an errant bullet, piercing straight through her heart and making Morana grind to a halt as she jumped to look towards the door.
The stairwell door.
Framing a very large, very muscular, very infuriated Tristan Caine.
A half-naked Tristan Caine, much like he'd been when she'd come to him last night, pinning her to the spot with those blue eyes.
A thrill shot down her spine, dread and terror and excitement washing over her in waves.
Adrenaline crashed through her system. Fight or flight. She knew she couldn't fight him right now, shouldn't fight him unless she wished to lose. Flight it was.
Without waiting for another beat, she turned on her heels and started running towards her car, not daring to even glance back to see if he was closing in. The blood rushed too loudly in her ears and her heaving breaths made it hard for her to listen to the sound of his footsteps but she didn't even stop to take a breath. She just kept running at full speed, giving it all she had. Her legs hurt from the sudden exertion, her heart beat madly to keep up but she ran like her life depended on it. It did.
Three cars down.
She was three cars down when two hard arms closed around her, pulling her flush against a warm, naked chest, stopping her in her tracks. She struggled wildly, her body wriggling against his to be set free, but the arms remained like bands around her, her head fitting under his jaw, her toes coming off the ground in her effort to jump away from him.
"Let me go!" she yelled at him, turning her head and biting down on his taut bicep, thrilling at inflicting that small injury on him.
She felt his chest rise sharply on an inhale against her back, his cock coming to life against her moving spine as he leaned down closer, putting his lips close to her ear, his whiskers brushing against the shell and sending heat straight to her core.
"You wish me well, do you?" he murmured softly, his lips almost touching her skin yet not, making her body ache for that touch. "Don't you know not to run away from predators, sweetheart? We like the hunt."
His words made her insides clench with a forbidden thrill even as she struggled against him, trying to escape while a part of her felt electrified.
"Unless you want me to lay you out right on that bloody car of yours and fuck you, stop moving."
Morana stilled, her breasts heaving against his arms as a small part of her told her to move her hips, daring him to carry out his threat.
No, this wasn't supposed to happen. Not again. Never again.
Swallowing down her confused emotions, she spoke quietly. "Let me go."
His nose nuzzled against her head, inhaling deeply. "I told you we have unfinished business."
"I don't care," she grit out, her teeth clenched against all the sensations overwhelming her inside and out.
There was a second of silence before he spoke.
"We've never lied to each other, Ms. Vitalio. Let's not start now," he murmured in that deep voice of his, the whiskey and sin rolling over her skin like a lover's caress, making her want to roll back her eyes and lean against him.
Her jaw clenched.
She turned her head again and bit him on that bicep. Again.
Before she could do more, he turned her around and pulled her flush against his body. Her heaving breasts pressed against his chest, his erection nudged against her belly, arms around her almost in the intimate hold of a lover rather than a foe. His magnificent blue eyes bore into hers with an intensity that both startled and somehow reassured her.
He didn't say another word, not for a long time, just looked at her with that singular focus, his jaw tight, his skin warm against hers, his breath fanning over her face. His lips hovered just an inch from hers, that musky scent of his surrounding them in a deadly cocoon.
He slowly brought up his right hand and gripped her jaw in his palm, his fingers and thumb on her cheeks, not painfully but firmly. Tilting her head all the way back as her heart pounded in her chest, the two conflicted sides of her fighting inside herself about the small space between their mouths. Her hands trembled beside her as she clenched them into fists to control the shaking of her body.
"Mind that mouth of yours, wildcat," he spoke softly, lethally, erotically in the space between their lips, the movement almost making them touch. Almost. His voice dropped lower, his eyes glued to hers. "It makes me want to reciprocate. And you don't want my mouth anywhere near you, remember?"
Morana felt her heart thud, her chest rise and fall rapidly. "It wasn't a damn kiss. I bit you."
One side of his lips quirked up even as his eyes heated. "Doesn't matter. I get my mouth on you, and you'll never be the same."
He leaned closer, impossibly closer, his lips right there, right there, but still far away, his hand on her face keeping her from moving both forward and back.
"Choose wisely, Ms. Vitalio."
Before Morana could blink, he smoothly took a step back and let go of her face, inclining his head towards the open elevator, waiting for her to move without saying another word.
In that moment, when he stepped back and gave her the space to choose, between so, so many things, Morana realized that no matter how much she wanted to escape, she could not. She was so entwined into the mess she had created, she wouldn't have been able to go away for long without her conscience poking her. She was so curious, so lured by whatever this bizarre thing between them was, this thing that made her feel safe for the first time in her life even as he promised to kill her, that she could not leave.
She couldn't run.
He wouldn't let her.
Morana gulped and took the step, slowly walking towards the elevator, aware of his vigilant presence behind her, telling her silently that he wouldn't let her go. Not yet. And for some asinine reason, it thrilled her. She wondered if she'd sent him the message subconsciously because she'd been aware of this. Had she?
She didn't know.
That was exactly why Tristan Caine scared her so much. Not because he was killing her – the ‘her’ she had known her entire life.
She admitted the truth to herself as she stepped into the elevator that would take her up again beside him.
Tristan Caine terrified her, but it wasn't because of the death he was bringing her slowly, the death he would bring her one day, the death he raised in her.
No.
It was the life.
‘The more you know, the less you do.’
Morana remembered reading that quote somewhere a long time ago. The words had stuck to her brain, but she’d never truly understood it. Being a certified genius, she'd always believed knowledge was the ultimate power. It was her thirst for knowledge which had made her bold enough to step out of her defined norms, time and again. It was this very belief that had led her into putting in everything she had and making those codes she'd come to dread so much.
Knowledge was power, but in the wrong hands, it was a weapon.
The Alliance had ended twenty years ago. Twenty-two, to be precise.
Two days after her laughable escape attempt, two days of living inside the guest room like an actual guest and not someone despised, the seething mess of Morana's emotions were finally calm.