A pair of hands grabbed me around the middle. My coffee flew from my hands when my feet left the ground. The world spun. I let out a cry. My feet touched the ground again. The hands slid along my body until arms encircled me.
“Shh, you’re safe,” Maddox whispered into my hair.
My heart thundered. Teeth chattering, I slowly registered what had happened. I was safe. The bus flew past us. It raced right through a red light. The sounds of blaring horns filled the air, but there was no crunch of metal and fiberglass to signal an impact.
It was over. The bus was gone—vanishing at a forked intersection that led between several buildings. The cars stopped honking.
I slumped in Maddox’s arms. He held me tight. In the circle of his arms, I could hear his own heartbeat thumping wildly. He’d…he’d been afraid for my safety. He stroked my hair gently. I wasn’t sure if it was to calm me or himself. He seemed just as shaken up over this as I was.
When I looked up at him, I expected him to be staring in the direction of the long-gone bus. Our gazes connected. A nervous spike made my stomach flip. My breath hitched. His eyes were dark and strangely comforting. When he looked at me, I felt like I was being surrounded with a heavy blanket in the middle of a calm night.
It was a feeling that I could get used to.
His brows furrowed. He touched my cheek with a bent knuckle. “When was the last time you slept? Did the monsters keep you up all night?”
When did Maddox become such a softie? My heart pattered at the brush of his knuckle against my cheek. I put my hands against his chest as my breath quickened. I had every intention of pushing him away, but I found myself stuck. No part of me wanted to move. Instead, I had to fight the urge to melt into him.
Here, with Maddox, the world seemed softer. The volume around me wasn’t so loud. I couldn’t hear the cries of ghosts around me so long as Maddox had ahold of me. This was a feeling I could quickly get addicted to.
Which meant that I had to push him away. I shoved, and his embrace vanished. Regret set in almost immediately when the cacophony of ghosts hit me all over again. I sucked in deep breaths while I struggled to balance myself again.
If I let Maddox bring me comfort like that, I would be overwhelmed every time I stepped away. I would want to be around him at all times, and that wouldn’t ever happen. He wanted something very different than me. If Maddox had his way, he would put me and all of my friends behind bars for things they couldn’t change.
He wasn’t a potential lover. He was an ally of convenience. The moment we solved this mystery, I would put real distance between the two of us. Maybe I would take some time off from work and backpack across the country.
“I mean it,” Maddox said, his voice gruff again. “When was the last time you slept? You look like—”
“Shit?” I supplied.
His upper lip curled into a mocking sneer. “No. That’s not what I was going to say.”
But he didn’t finish his statement, which led me to believe that’s exactly what he’d been about to say. I didn’t blame him, though. I knew I looked like shit. My concealer must have worn off. That’s what happened when I bought the three-dollar makeup from the clearance racks.
My gaze fell on my coffee, splattered all over the street. I sighed and clenched my empty hand in grief.
“That happen often in this city?” Maddox asked.
No, it didn’t. Syracuse might be an awful city, but buses didn’t try to mow people down every day. Right before it’d happened, the chill of death had crept up on me. My initial instinct had been that someone must have passed away. The feeling had distracted me and blinded me to the bus that’d been rushing towards me.
Now, I wondered if that had been on purpose.
I looked up and down the street for signs of whoever might have been behind this, but several minutes had passed since then. The bus was long gone. The street was nigh empty. There were only a few people mingling about, and they were busy minding their own business—at least it seemed that way.
“Someone wants me dead,” I said.
Maddox grunted. Couldn’t he provide any other response? Was he a freakingcaveman?
“Use your words,” I snapped.
Maddox looked me dead in the eye andgrunted.
I threw my hands in the air and spun away from him. This is why I didn’t invite men into my life. They were nothing more than a nuisance. At best, they were nice to look at. At worst, they left scars that required several years of therapy to heal.
I wasn’t sure how Vi or Ness got so lucky. It seemed that fate favored them, despite what they might say. Both had gotten mates, destined lovers who would do anything for them. As someone who wasn’t a shifter, there was no promise of a mate for me. I would have to deal with men the same way everyone else did.
Maddox caught up to me. He grabbed my arm and gently pulled me to a stop.
I threw a glare back at him. He didn’t flinch the way I expected. The cool power of my arcana danced along my skin. When I exhaled, my breath was icy. Yet, Maddox looked me in the eye without showing even the barest hint of fear.
“Do you want a twenty-four-hour detail?” he asked, his voice tender.
I reeled away from him. His concern surprised me more than I expected. It was…unwelcome. He crashed between hot and cold without warning. My head was spinning, and I couldn’t bear another minute of it.
Shrugging off his grasp, I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going somewhere no one will be able to find me.”