Demand Read Free

hell are you?”
    â€œFuck,” Kayden murmurs, straightening and cupping my face. “I have to go. He would have waited downstairs if this wasn’t important.” He kisses me fast, hard, and it’s over far too soon. He releases me and turns away, and in a blink he’s gone.
    In about two seconds, I’ve decided I can’t stay in this tower and wonder if we’re about to be attacked. I grab the gun from the counter and shove it into my dripping-wet purse, then snatch up a towel before dashing out of the bathroom and through the spare bedroom. Exiting into the chilly long hallway, I see no sign of Kayden or Adriel. I run to the center stairs and lean over the railing. “Kayden! Is everything okay?”
    Silence replies, confirming I’ve taken too long to catch him. I start down the stairs, only to see splattered blood and water all over the place. Freezing for a moment, in my mind’s eye, I am back in the foyer of the castle, and Enzo is lying in the center of the floor, blood pouring from his body. Suddenly, I need out of these clothes, and I hurry back up the stairs, cutting left toward the room I share with Kayden, and . . . oh wow.
    I am dizzy, and I grab the wall, holding on. Abruptly, I am transported back to my old family home, kneeling next to my father as he bleeds to death, begging him to wake up, demanding that he wake up, and . . . God. Wake up! Get up! The scent of the fresh-baked cookies we’d been eating before the attack brushes my nostrils, turning my stomach. Wake up! I shake him—and then everything goes black.
    Dizziness overtakes me again, and I try to focus, finally blinking in light, and then my surroundings, and . . . oh God. I’m not in the hallway anymore. I am standing in the closet of our bedroom, and I am not sure how I got here. My hand goes to my head and I breathe in and out, trying to remember the walk here, scared when I can’t. “What just happened? What the hell just happene d ?”
    Trying the blinking thing again, since it worked once, I lower and lift my lashes, but I still have no clue how I got here. My only comfort is that I am still here—not somewhere else. I tell myself this is a residual effect from my healing concussion, but my attack in the alleyway was more than a week ago now. And a blackout when I’m this far into healing can’t be a good sign. But neither is Kayden’s rapid departure, on the tail end of telling me he’s killed the kingpin’s brother.
    I towel off my hair, strip off my wet, bloody clothes, and quickly dress in black jeans and a black T-shirt, hating that I make those choices because of possible exposure to more blood. But that is the reality, and exactly why I shove my feet into black Keds and pull on a black hoodie. Walking into the bathroom, I grab the hair dryer and put it to use on my hair, my purse, and even my phone. As I do so, I wonder what it would be like if my dyed-brown hair were red again. What would it be like if I knew the truth of how I got here? What would it mean if Kayden and I had answers, not questions, between us?
    Shaking off the thought, I test my phone, which somehow still works, and I stick it and my gun in my now semidry purse. Shoving the strap over my head and across my chest, I step into the cozy bedroom of brown and cream with high ceilings and bring the massive bed, which I hope to continue to share with Kayden, into view. Memories and emotions created in this room stir inside me, only to be muted by the sound of the alarm going off inside the security closet, by the fireplace.
    Startled, I go to the closet and punch the button by the mantel to enter, then sit down at the desk built into the wall to quickly scan the exterior castle’s camera footage, but I find nothing obvious. Certain the alarm wasn’t an error, I waste no time making my way out of the bedroom, down the hall and winding tower steps, to