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Lethal Untouchable

"Why did you bring me here?"

"It’s in DarkRiver territory It’s safe"

She folded her ar air was chilly, that wasn’t what made her search for comfort It was the cold distance Clay had put between theht of her without words

It hurt

And she knew she’d brought it on herself But she couldn’t pretend What she’d seen Clay do had trauht-year-old mind into silence for close to a year "You were brutal," she found herself saying instead of asking for what she wanted, the reason she’d fought the vicious truths of the past and tracked hiive her betrayal

"You were my one point of safety, the one person I trusted to never lose hier and hurt me," she persisted in the face of his silence "Yet you ended up being more violent than anyone else How could I help but wonder if the violence wouldn’t be directed at rowl raised every hair on her body

Chapter 3

Run! her h with running But her heart was a drumbeat in her throat

"You always knehat I was," Clay said, tone full of a bone-deep fury "You chose not to think about it, chose to pretend I hat you wanted me to be"

"No" She refused to back down "You were different before" Before he’d discovered what Orrin had done Before he’d killed to keep her safe "You were - "

"You’reup fairy tales" The harshest of rejoinders "The only thing different about me was that I treated you like a kid You’re not a kid any to sheathe his claws, she thought "I don’t care what you say We’re still friends"

"No, we’re not Not when you’re quaking in your boots at the sight of me My friends don’t look atto that She did fear him, maybe more than she feared anyone else on this planet Clay had almost destroyed her once, was the sole person who could do that even now "I’m sorry" Sorry that her weakness had h to get past what she’d seen in that blood-soaked room Sorry that she’d co hile day without him, she had missed him Now, he was a shadow in the darkness All she could see clearly were those cat eyes of his Then she sensed hi her out

"This isn’t going to work," she whispered, conscious of so inside of her "It’s ht have been angry at what she’d done, but he would have forgiven her, would have understood her need to grow strong enough to deal with hi and noasn’t hers anyo back"

"Tell hness of his voice stroked over her in a disturbingly intiive me orders" It was out before she could censor herself As a child, she had learned to keep her opinions to herself It was far safer But half an hour with Clay - a Clay as al into the old patterns between theotten mad if she had kept her ht, a bright spark of hope igniting,to be brought to heel"

A s over skin "Still got a shtness in her chest eased If Clay had told her to shut up"Can I ask you so me for your job? Sorry, Talin, I hold the power here"

The emotional taunt hurt more than any physical blow They had always been equals - friends "I want to know you again"

"All you need to know is that I’h out of the shadows that she could see the unwelco the questions - tell o after they took roggy Clay being hauled to his feet by black-garbed Enforcement officers, his hands locked behind his back with extra-strength cuffs He hadn’t resisted, had been unable to do so because of the drugs they had shot into him

But his eyes had refused to close, had never left her own

Green

That was the color that drenched her memories of that day Not the rich red of blood but the hot flareen Clay’s eyes She’d whimpered when they’d taken hi, that he’d return for her And he had