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The otherworlder reached her a split second before Hector did Her instincts ell honed, and when the guy sla to sink the blade into her kidney--a kill shot--she twisted and rolled, and Hector soared over the around, rage red flickering in his line of vision Rage red, and blood Despite Noelle’s maneuver, the tip of the blade must have slicked over her dress and into her, because there were splatters of blood soaking the material to her waist She held her side with one hand as she unfolded to a stand In the other, she clutched a dagger of her own It, too, was bloody
She’d uy, and maybe that hy he hadn’t yet teleported ahy he was lu the old-fashioned way
"You okay?" Hector deulfed by flaotten to his woman in time If she hadn’t reacted as she had, she would be dead Could still die… that blood… his burning, itching hands began to singe through the ood, I swear," she said with surprising force "Now go get hi He propelled intochase This man Had hurt Noelle
Thisto catch up He dove a second tie oak in Noelle’s front yard before rolling to the ground
Hector grabbed the guy by his jacket Or tried to His hands destroyed the rest of the gloves and ghosted straight through thethe cold slab of dirt beneath hiainst his forearan was in the process of cooking He jerked free, the guy burning to ashes and scattering in the wind That quickly
Not sorry Anyone who hurt Noelle deserved what they got
Noelle!
Fear and fury battled for suprehtened the rest of the way At the sarass, where the body had been, catching, growing, then reaching the flowers, catching, growing, then slithering toward Noelle’s house Shit!
Hector swung around, searching for any other threat against his woman No one else stepped from the shadows He focused on Noelle She held a phone to her ear with one hand, was still clutching her side with the other
Pale and shaky, she disconnected from the call and took a step toward him "Whole crew is on the way Firemen, medics, AIR"
"Stay back, sweetheart I don’t want you burned" He held out an ar so brightly his eyes teared His jacket, gone His shirt, vaporized Skin, muscle, bone, vanished Only thathe touched would be razed the very instant of contact
Horror swept through hiive in to that ee He could hear the crackle of fla of the bricks
"Let aze on him rather than her ruined home
"Listen to me, sweetheart" Shed "You can’t get close to ue, she leaned against the car, ?
"How bad are you?" he des worse
"Not very A few stitches and I’ll be fine"
Stitches, a needle being threaded through her precious skin Another spark of anger caused the azure to pulse He grit his ed on Noelle to patch her up When one of them tried to approach him, shock and terror in his eyes, Hector issued a harsh threat that kept him and everyone else at bay
The fire around to douse the flames hatever enzyme spray they used They even sprayed hihtest
He could have run, could have tried to keep his identity under wraps, but he wasn’t leaving until someone he trusted stood next to Noelle
As if su onto the scene like the hero he was He checked on Noelle, who erupted into a speech Hector couldn’t hear over the chaos of the sirens
Hector turned to view the charred reed, he realized, fucking hating hi him He could have torched Noelle, could have done that to Noelle
That easily, heto see if he could learn to control hiether No back and forth seduction No hoping he would change He’d just proven to hi Dallas approached him slowly "What can I do to help you?"
"Shoot est damn tranq the medics have Twice" Without his eo back to nor no one--comes over"
Thirty-nine
FUCKING DALLAS, HECTOR THOUGHT two days later as he strode through AIR Conversations tapered off Eyes of every color watched him warily No one said a word to hi his arht and most of the next day Except the bastard hadn’t taken Hector home He’d woken up in the hospital, tubes and electrodes hooked to practically every inch of hiovern him Shocked that reporters hadn’t swared Noelle lay in the bed next to hioddamn heart because he couldn’t hold her He’d checked her file--thirty-eight stitches in her side, a small blood transfusion--and left her there
A very worried--and very pale, befanged, and pissed off--Ava had been in the hallway, talking to Dallas, who’d been giving her the scoop They’d tried to stop hi, hadn’t looked back
Now …
You knohat you have to do
He found Mia in her office, the door open She sat at her desk, her dark head bent over an electronic file A soft rap of his knuckles against the frame, and her attention snapped up
Astonishment filled her baby blues, followed by concern and resolve "Didn’t expect you in until tomorrow," she said "But, okay, we can do this now Sit down" She motioned to the chair in front of her desk with an i the door with the press of a button, he plopped down "Wanted to give youback, she crossed her arms over her middle Same pose she’d adapted when he and Noelle had been here last, requesting permission to attend the party I don’t like it, she’d said then Now he got, "Okay, then, let’s hear it"
"I told Phillips I was co after him He sent an Arcadian assassin to Noelle’s hoht hiht blue," she said
A jerky nod No reason to deny it People had seen People had to be talking
"Those hands of yours also turned Tremain’s house into a bonfire, without the use of a match"