He opened the door after we’d finally made it to my room, and I entered it. Everything had been removed but the bed. No couch sat beside it, no vanity with the large oval mirror, just the large bed with one blanket and a single pillow. Great, I was in jail.
Chapter 23
Sitting on the bed, I frowned while gazing around the empty room. All of my personal things had been removed from the room, which meant I had nothing to change into. I turned, staring at the male who watched me with pretty blue eyes. He leaned against the door, frowning as he took in the room. Huffing, I lifted a brow.
“He took my clothes, really?” I stood up, kicking off my shoes while struggling to keep my balance. “What am I supposed to wear to bed?”
“Sleep naked, I don’t mind.” Brander chuckled darkly, watching me as I struggled to remove my shoes.
“Are you to be my jailer?”
“No, your room now only locks from the outside.”
“Peachy,” I snorted, pulling my shirt over my head, which took several times of trying before I was able to remove it. His gaze dipped to the white bra I’d changed into when we had been sent back here for Knox to investigate the murder.
Had I known I would be accused, I may have escaped and hid food and liquor in my room. If I was going to be in jail or locked up in Knox’s house, it would take a lot of both to survive it. I undid the jeans I wore, pushing them down and stepping out of them.
“Are you planning to watch me get naked?” I asked, noting the smolder in his eyes while he did just that. “Want to help me get naked?” I didn’t want to die a virgin, and I’d felt him, which made him one of two men I could enjoy sleeping with.
“You want me to?” he countered, and then turned, staring down the hall. “Hold that thought, my replacement is coming. He can assist you.”
Knox entered the doorway, and I scoffed. “Pass,” I muttered, turning around to unclasp my bra. Once the girls were free, I climbed onto the bed and pulled the shitty blanket over my head, listening as they spoke in that strange, hypnotic language.
The door closed, and still, I refused to remove the blanket, my eyes growing heavy with the need to sleep. I had almost succumbed to sleep when something sat on the bed, ripping the blanket from my head and body. I started to sit up, but the world spun around me, so I lay there, staring up at Knox, who watched me through mere slits.
“Just plan to fuck anyone willing now?”
“Well, anyone but you,” I snorted, dropping my eyes from the look of disgust I read in his. “Don’t take it personally, Knox, you’re just a dick.”
I turned onto my side, ignoring him or the fact that I could feel his heated stare as he took in the ravens that moved up my spine and around the side of my waist to slip beneath my breastbone. He didn’t speak, at least not until I was almost asleep again.
“Did you kill Jasper?” he asked, and when I didn’t answer him fast enough, he asked again, the place where his name was began burning.
“You know I didn’t,” I hissed angrily.
“Answer the question.”
“No,” I whispered sleepily.
“Did you help Amara murder Jasper?”
“No.”
“Have you seen her since you’ve been back to Haven Falls?”
“No,” I replied impatiently.
“Do you want to fuck Brander?” His eyes smiled with the question, burning in them as he awaited my answering reply.
Dick.
“No.” I turned to stare at him through sleep-filled eyes. “Dick move, jerk.”
“Do you want to fuck me?”
“No,” I stated, turning to stare at the wall as burning started in my thigh until I screamed from the pain of lying. “I hate you!”
“You hate me enough to fuck me, though,” he chuckled darkly, turning me back over until he was staring down at me. “Are you still drunk?”
“Yes, very much so, Knox. Can you go now?”
“I’m debating on that now.”
“Let me make this easy for you, get out. I don’t like you sober, and getting drunk didn’t help either. So run back to Regen, or whatever her name is, and get fucked.” I turned away again, giving him my back.
“Regina is a generous lover,” he divulged, and I frowned, hating him more.
“Cool story, bro. Go get it then,” I muttered hoarsely.
“You chose battle ravens, why?”
I ignored him until he repeated it and forced me to answer. “Because they’ve been wounded, but they still fly fearlessly.”
“Did you know they say the gods used them to be their eyes and ears in this realm at one time?”
“Greek or Norse, because both are believed to have used them to carry messages or warnings with their presence?” I questioned.
“It’s said the Tower of London will fall if the ravens leave.”
“So they clipped their wings to keep them from flying, guaranteeing it never fell. They cheated, ensuring the raven couldn’t fly was mean. Apollo considered them bad luck, and Odin used them for his eyes and ears. Apollo also used them to spy on his lover because he was an insecure prat. Why are you still in my room?”
He chuckled, turning me over and moving so smoothly that my brain didn’t register he’d trapped me to the bed. He stared at me, watching me carefully before I glared up at him with a loathing I couldn’t fake.
“You kissed me today,” he announced.
“Yeah, but it didn’t work.”
“You’ve never been properly kissed before, have you?”
“Does it matter? And so what, I wasn’t trying to make out with you. I was trying to keep you from looking under the bed.”
He leaned down, and my mouth opened and closed while he lowered his head, brushing his mouth against mine. I held my mouth shut, watching him until the room began spinning, and I closed them to keep from being swallowed up by the ocean swimming within his gaze. His tongue prodded my mouth to open, and I did, letting him taste the alcohol I’d drank earlier.
His hand slid beneath my head, and before I could argue, he had me sitting up without ever breaking the kiss. Knox deepened the kiss the moment my tongue slipped against his, it began pulling at something within me.
Knox didn’t just kiss me.
He sent electricity rushing through me, opening something untapped within me. It was all-consuming, earthshattering, and I felt him everywhere all at once. As if by kissing me, this man had slipped into my soul and was leaving his name written in permanent ink. Knox took the air from my lungs, slowly giving it back to me with his kiss. I inhaled every inch of him into my lungs hungrily.
He deepened the kiss, making it primal as something snapped within me, and I couldn’t get close enough to him. I couldn’t get enough of him. His hand slipped to the back of my neck, holding me as if he feared I would escape his hungry kiss, but thought wasn’t something I could achieve with his mouth against mine. His other hand lifted, tilting my chin to gain further depth, which I wasn’t sure I should allow. He wasn’t asking; he took, and I gave. The heat that shot through me wasn’t pleasant, it was fucking delicious, and I craved burning to ashes from the intensity of it.