Leo says something to him, but they’re too far away for me to catch exactly what. Then Jax melts into the trees and disappears completely.
“Where are you taking me?” I call up to Leo.
The moment I ask the question, he turns sharply and walks into the trees. I jog to catch up with him.
The moment I do, the trees open, and I’m looking out on a snowy oasis.
Snow-capped peaks and white valleys flow seamlessly into one another, a single unbroken pane of ice as far as the eye can see.
As beautiful as the view is, I’m distracted by the modern cabin that rises three stories into the clear blue sky.
The fa?ade is mostly glass, framed by logs as thick as a man’s waist. Through the windows, I catch glimpses of the interior. A piano soaking in the pale sun. A spiral staircase, a stone fireplace, a shelf of books.
A rock path leads up to the front door. Leo opens it for me as we approach. “Go inside.”
When I hesitate, he arches an eyebrow. “Unless you’d prefer to freeze to death?”
I grit my teeth and follow him inside.
I expect Jax and Gaiman to be there, too, but neither one makes an appearance. All the men that accompanied us up here seem to have melted into the snow.
The moment I step into the cabin, warmth covers me like a blanket. I sigh with gratitude—these mountains really are cold.
The living room is beautifully decorated. Rustic furniture, roughly hewn from the trees that carpet the mountainside. Paintings set in thick iron frames depict the landscape in the winter, the spring, the summer, the fall, at sunrise and sunset, in storms and in sunshine. The floor is layered with rugs in every shade of deep burgundy, emerald green, and gold.
I sigh—this time, with irritation. Leave it to Leo Solovev to have a remote mountain getaway that looks like the interior spread of an architectural magazine.
“Your room is on the third floor,” Leo tells me as he walks towards the sprawling bar in one corner of the room. “The blue door. It faces the mountains.”
I smell the whiskey the moment he opens the bottle and pours himself a drink. My boots click across the wooden floors as I walk to the bar and take a seat two stools away from him.
Truthfully, I’d rather stand on the opposite side of the room from him, my back pressed against the glass so he can’t sneak up on me from behind. But I can’t show any fear.
Leo feasts on fear.
I don’t wait for him to offer me anything. I pluck the bottle from his hand and take a swig right from it.
It burns my throat on the way down, but I don’t flinch. When I’m done, I set the bottle back on the counter.
He looks at me with one raised eyebrow. “Trying to prove a point?”
“What point would that be?”
“That you’re a tough girl now, I suppose.”
Patronizing asshole. Instead of biting back, I take another swig of whiskey. It’s safer than getting into it with Leo. This time, it’s hard not to wince against the sting.
“You might want to take it easy,” he tells me.
“I can hold my own.”
Condescension drips from that smile as he reaches for the bottle. Before he can reach it, I slide it away from him, keeping my grip tight around the bottle’s neck.
“I’m not done.”
“You should be,” he says. “But you’ve never known what’s best for yourself.”
I answer that with another swig. “Where are my parents? What have you done with them?”
“I’ve taken care of them,” he says.
It does nothing to comfort me. It could mean anything.
“Who is she?”
“Who?”
“You know who,” I snap. “The blonde bitch. His creature… or maybe she’s yours. I don’t even know at this point.”
He eyes me carefully, but his expression is completely impassive. “Brit,” he says, his lips curling around her name like a caress. “Her name is Brit.”
“Brit,” I spit. “Right. Who is she to you?”
“She’s the woman who freed you from that prison,” he says, as though I could ever forget. The walls have eyes. That phrase has lived in my head rent-free for eleven long months. I scour every room I walk into now.
“Am I supposed to be grateful to her?”
“If you were smart, you would be. She saved you.”
“My mother that saved me.”
“Your mother intercepted what was meant to be my mission,” he snaps. “I had a car outside waiting for you. Anya just got to you first.”
This is news to me. And it matters more than it should. Not that I let any of that show.
“It doesn’t really matter though, does it? She’s the one who got me out.”
“She wouldn’t have been able to if it hadn’t been for Brit. If it hadn’t been for me.”
I’m tempted to take another swig of whiskey, but he was right about the strength. I’m already starting to feel the buzz, and I can’t afford to lose sight of my inhibitions where Leo is concerned.
“So she is your creature?” I ask, needing to hear the confirmation from his lips.
“One of many.” He speaks with a possessiveness that makes my blood boil.
“Is that all she is to you?”
I hate myself for even caring, much less asking the question. But my jealousy is at the wheel, and I can’t stop the question from escaping my lips.
He smiles. “You care?”
Fuck it, I say to myself. The only way I’m going to get through this is with a buzz in my veins. I take another swig of whiskey. “I owe that bitch a debt, and I would like to pay it back soon.”
“What kind of debt?”
“A debt of blood.”
His eyes narrow. “You’ll have to get through me first.”
I push myself off the seat. If the stools weren’t cemented to the floor, mine would have toppled over. “I guess that’s my answer.”
“Assumptions are a dangerous thing, Willow,” he says calmly. “You don’t have all the information.”
I ignore that. “No wonder she was so cruel to me. I married her man. How silly of me.”
“I’m her don,” he says. “Not her man.”
I walk around the two barstools that separate us and put myself right between his spread legs. “Too bad I don’t believe a fucking word out of your lips, Leo.”
His eyes burn with a quiet satisfaction that makes my heart feel like it’s going to burst into flame. I want to kill him as much as I want to kiss him.
Fuck me.
I jerk away from him before things get out of hand and walk towards the living room. I stop at the edge of the burgundy carpet. The chandelier hanging from the high ceiling gives and refracts light, casting rainbows around the room.
I swing around, aware that the alcohol has set my tongue free but unable to rein myself in.
“Did Brit decorate this place?” I taunt.
“Does it matter?”
“Fuck you.”
He smiles. And it unravels me.
I’ve spent eleven months’ worth of nights dreaming of that smile.
And eleven months’ worth of days trying to forget it.
Now, it’s in front of me, reminding me of everything I’ve lost. Of everything I’ll never get back.
“You’re dangerously close to drunk, Willow,” Leo says, taking a step towards me. “Go to your room before you do something you’ll regret.”