Roar (Witches & Warlocks Book 3) Read Free Page A

hair tie around it. I’ll just grab something quick. I’ll sleep better on a full stomach anyway.
    The kitchen’s a disaster. Bread crumbs on the counter mingling with bits of shredded cheese. Empty water bottles fallen on their side and forgotten. A dirty plate, with bits of ketchup and mayonnaise drying to a hardened mess in the sink. Definitely Luke’s handiwork.
    Normally, I’d at least wipe the counter clean, but tonight, I just work around the mess. He can take care of it in the morning. Hell, I guess it already is morning. He can take care of it when he wakes up.
    Noah wanders in while I’m eating and my food turns to sawdust in my mouth. We’ve had to work together so closely these last couple weeks. I mean, we live together for Pete’s sake. And our jobs are right next door to each other. And then, you know, there’s the whole thing where we have to go on these crazy covert missions where we trust each other with our lives. You’d think things might have thawed a little between us.
    That’s not fair. Things have most definitely improved. Just not to the level that I want them to improve.
    “Hey,” he says as I try to swallow the lump of food in my mouth.
    I smile and nod and grab a drink of water. “Hey.” I watch him open the fridge and dig around inside. He always has trouble eating after we manage to take out a target. “Your throat OK?”
    He twists so I can see the spreading bruise, black and blue and quite clearly caused by a set of human teeth. “Gonna be hard to explain that one away.”
    “Just say it’s your overzealous girlfriend.” I take another swig of water and pull out a bag of tortilla chips from the cupboard. Toss them his way. Even when he doesn’t have an appetite, he’s got room for those. “You’ll get a ton of street cred at work.”
    Noah laughs. Not the good one. Not the one that makes me feel like I’m home. It’s this tense little thing, almost a cough. “I’ll heal myself when I’ve had a chance to rest up a little. You pulled a lot of energy from me.”
    For a moment I’m back in that dirty alley, time stopped. Nancy’s teeth at his throat. The very last fraction of a second before she bit down and killed him. My heart wrenches in my chest. I don’t think he realizes how close he was to not being here with me, having this awkward conversation while he tears open a bag of tortilla chips.
    I shrug a little and feel my eyes come back into focus. “Sorry.”
    This is more than I can handle right now. I don’t have the energy to look him in the eyes, to know how much I love him, how much he doesn’t love me, and know how close I came to losing him completely tonight. I finish my snack and down another glass of water. Rinse my plate and fit it into the mess in the sink.
    “Well, goodnight,” I say as I brush past him, eyes on the ground, careful to give him a wide enough berth so we don’t accidentally touch.
    And then, out of the blue, his hand is on my arm and there’s that warm zing of his energy soaring through me. I freeze, but don’t turn around. I don’t want him to see the tears welling in my eyes.
    “Zoe?” There’s a softness in his voice that I haven’t heard in a long time. I turn my head just enough to show that I’m listening and hope he can’t see the tears. Or feel how my whole body is trembling. Or if he feels it, that he’ll just attribute it to my fatigue and not know that it’s because he’s touching me and it feels so good.
    “Ya?” I ask, glad that my voice doesn’t quaver.
    “Thank you.” He lets his hand slide from my arm. I blink my eyes dry and face him. “I know I owe you my life. I’m not really sure how you did what you did, but thank you.” He smiles and it’s the first time since Windsor that it’s lit up his eyes the way it’s supposed to and if I don’t get out of here now, I’m going to lose it.
    What do I say? Back atcha? You’d do it for me? I couldn’t let that bitch kill you because I love