Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [736]
Farther out was a jut of rocks that had been one of her favorite thinking spots. She went there now, navigating carefully over the bulky black stone in the dark. She found the flat ledge that formed the perfect seat on the rough edge of the outcropping and eased herself down onto it.
For a long while, she simply stared out at the water, watching the waves shimmer under the pale glow of the moon and stars.
She could have stayed in that tranquil spot for hours more, but the incoming tide was creeping ever higher on the rocks and soon the water would drive her away. Regretfully, she turned around and crawled back from the edge. When she stood up, she was startled to find she wasn’t alone.
“Andreas,” she said, astonished to see him.
His chest was rising and falling visibly, concern spread across the taut lines of his face.
Claire had to force her feet to remain grounded and not move toward him in reflex. She didn’t want him here, despite what her heart seemed to think. “How did you find me?”
Even as she asked the question she knew the answer. Breed senses were superhumanly acute. As if the blood bond he now had with her wasn’t beacon enough, he could have easily tracked her by scent. Not that he seemed inclined to explain himself. He was pissed off and worried, and the fact that he’d come all this way to find her should have been reassuring, even flattering.
It might have been, if not for the fact that with Wilhelm Roth less than a hundred miles away, she needed Andreas gone as far as possible from her. And the sooner, the better.
“You left without a word, Claire.”
She tried not to scoff at the irony in that. “I would have expected you’d be a bit more accepting, considering your history with good-byes.”
He stared at her, eyes narrowed. “What’s going on with you?”
She shrugged with a casualness she didn’t feel. “Nothing.”
“Why did you leave like that? You didn’t think for one minute that I would be concerned if you just vanished without any explanation?” He exhaled a low curse and shook his head, contrite, even though his eyes were still hot with anger. “I damn well deserved it, I know. But you scared the hell out of me back there. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
She couldn’t tell him. Fear for what he would do if he knew Roth was close by froze that part of the truth in her throat. She glanced away from his intense, probing stare. “I’m afraid, Andreas. I just wanted to be somewhere familiar, somewhere that I belong. After everything that’s happened, I suppose I just wanted to be home. I wanted a little peace.”
“Home and peace,” he said, doubt bracketing his mouth in tense lines. “No, I don’t think so. You bolted out of there like it was me you couldn’t get away from fast enough. I want to know why. Was it because of what happened … in the dream? Because I didn’t mean to hurt you. I want you to know that.”
When she only stared at him in mute torment, his hand came up to gently stroke her cheek. “God, Claire… all I have ever wanted was to keep you safe.”
A sob worked its way up her throat. “Why?” she murmured. “Why are you showing me all of this tenderness now, Andre? Why not then?”
He swore softly. “To keep you safe, I had to let you go.”
She shook her head, unwilling to accept that excuse, but he softly caught her chin. The pad of his thumb was a whisper of contact as he brushed it across her lips. “I left because of what I had become. You’ve seen it now—the fire that lives inside me. I was horrified when I thought of what it could do to those I loved. Like you, Claire. Christ… especially you.”
She swallowed with a dry throat. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this at the time? We could have worked through it—”
“No,” he said. “There was no working through it, not then. It exploded out of me without any warning. I lived most of my life never knowing what my fury could do. Once it got loose the first time, it owned me. I left Germany because it was the only thing I could do. It took the better