“Plan on it.” My gaze roamed over the exposed brick walls and rather bare space. Like the last time I was here, there was only the large sectional couch and the TV. It still didn’t look lived in. “Hope you don’t have company.” I spun, facing him. “If you do, I don’t…”
I trailed off, thinking that I probably should’ve looked at him before I forced my way inside. He wasn’t exactly shirtless, but that white shirt of his was completely unbuttoned, giving me an eyeful of his toned chest and a tight, ripped lower stomach.
God, he had the kind of body that wasn’t even human.
Probably because he wasn’t human.
The King arched a brow. “Do you see something you like, sunshine?”
Cheeks heating, I snapped out of my stupor before I started drooling. “Did you forget how to button a shirt?”
A faint grin appeared. “Actually, I was going to change it. However, I was interrupted by someone banging on my door like a madwoman.”
“Oh, I am definitely a madwoman.” I glared up at him. “How could you do that?”
“Do what?” he asked, leaning against the wall.
“Don’t pretend like you have no idea why I’m here.”
“Is it because I outed you?” He crossed his arms, which made his pecs do amazing, interesting—stop it! “For your own safety.”
Dumbfounded, I was momentarily speechless. “My own safety?”
“There seems to be an echo in here.”
“There’s about to be an ass-kicking in here,” I shot back, hands balling into fists. “I don’t need you looking out for my safety.”
He tilted his head, the grin increasing. “You need someone. Anyone. But a person who is responsible.”
“Oh my God.” I took a breath. “Do you think this is amusing?”
“How mad would you be if I said yes?”
My nostrils flared.
“Very mad, I see. I can’t help it.” A full smile appeared. “You’re…adorable when you’re mad.”
“Adorable?” I stomped my foot.
“See. Just there. It’s cute.”
“I am going to physically harm you.”
“Versus mentally?” he queried.
The fact that he was teasing me, that he wasn’t taking this seriously at all, infuriated me even more. “You had no right to do what you did.” I took a step toward him. “Do you know I spent the last hour or so listening to Ivy and Ren and Faye talk to me as if I’ve never held an iron dagger before? Do you know that if this gets back to Miles, I could be removed from the Order?”
His gaze sharpened. “Ivy nor Ren would inform on you.”
He was right. Ivy would never do that. At least, I hoped not. “That doesn’t mean someone like Tanner or Kalen or Faye won’t say something to someone that eventually gets back to Miles,” I pointed out. “What you did was wrong.”
The King pushed off the wall, unfolding his arms. The shirt parted, attempting to distract me. “You left me no choice. You would not stop. I thought maybe they could talk some sense into you.”
“Guess what? They didn’t.” I smirked when his jaw tightened. “And I’m going to repeat this for, hopefully, the last time. You do not get to tell me what I can and cannot do. Even if you and I were a thing, which we’re not, you still would not get to tell me what to do. I don’t know who you think you are—”
“The King?” he suggested.
“—but you have no say over what I do. Stay out of my way and out of my life,” I told him. “I mean it. There is no reason for you to interfere.”
The King looked away, a muscle thrumming in his temple.
Having said my piece, I started toward the door.
“Has it ever occurred to you that I am trying to protect you? That I’m trying to keep you safe?”
Slowly, I turned to him. “No. It hasn’t. For a multitude of obvious reasons. And besides that, I don’t need you to keep me safe or to protect me.”
“Everyone needs someone to protect them.” He tipped back his head, his eyes closing.
“Even you?” I scoffed.
“Even me.”
My brow smoothed out. I’d seen what he was capable of, so the fact that he’d admitted that was rather shocking.
“I do not want to see harm come to you.” His voice was quiet. “I do not have to be with you to want that.”
I flushed to the roots of my hair. “I know that.”
“Then why are you being so difficult about this?” he asked.
“Because…” I toyed with the strap of my purse. “Because I need to do this. I can’t sit by, not when Aric is still alive. You have to understand that.”
The King was quiet for several moments, and then he looked at me. “If you knew that someone you…you looked fondly upon was doing something that would surely lead to their demise, would you not try to stop them?”
“Are you saying you look fondly upon me, King?”
His head tilted, and then he looked away.
I laughed, but the sound lacked any real humor. “Yeah, okay. But to answer your question, I wouldn’t stop you, even if I knew it was dangerous.”
The King’s gaze cut back to mine. “But you’d still look fondly upon me.”
I gave him a tight-lipped smile. “No. Because it would get you out of my hair.”
“Now, Brighton, you and I both know that’s a lie.” His chin dipped. “If something were to happen to me, you’d be devastated.”
I didn’t even want to think about that. I didn’t want to acknowledge how thinking about that made me feel and what it meant. “You value yourself a little too highly.”
“And you don’t value your life enough.”
My hand tightened around my purse strap. “I value my life. And I don’t think of myself poorly.” I took a step toward him. “Aric and those fae took more than just my mom that night.” Something in my chest cracked open as I spoke. “They took…”
“What did they take?”
I bit my lip. “They took my feeling of security, my belief that I could protect myself and my mom—that I was capable of taking care of her. They took my purpose.”
“Your purpose?” He faced me fully.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shook my head. I was not getting into this with him. “I’ve said what I needed to say. You don’t have to like that I’m out there, but you can’t stop me. If it ends with me getting myself killed, then so be it. And I don’t say that because I don’t value my life. I say that because at least I would die taking back what they stole from me.”
“I can… I can respect that,” he said, his gaze meeting mine. His eyes were pools of golden fire. “But I won’t.”
For a second, I didn’t think I’d heard him right. “You won’t?”
He shook his head as he approached me. “I will watch you. I will have others watching you. Every time you step foot on that street in some silly disguise or near any location where Neal has been sighted, I will intervene.”
My lips parted as disbelief swirled through me.