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I twisted in my seat. “Are you worried I’ll wreck your fancy car?”
“So, you think my car is fancy?”
I tapped the dash. “I think your car would be better on the right side of the road.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled back into our lane.
“What happened to if I die I’ll get out of this bargain?” He imitated a high-pitched voice.
“Is that supposed to be me?” I snapped, shifting my attention from the road to glower at him. “I’m sorry that I don’t want to die splattered like modern art on the side of a bar.”
He groaned and slowed the car, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he began driving at a normal, non-life-endangering speed, all four wheels within the confines of the painted lines.
I punched him on the shoulder. “Dick! You scared the shit out of me.”
My heart flipped a little when he smirked, the car not so much as drifting even with his eyes on me. “Last night, you seemed like you were looking for trouble.”
And there it was. The elephant in the room. Or, rather, the car. The car, which left me nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I suddenly wished I was still being distracted by my imminent death.
“I had a lot to drink.” It was a flimsy excuse, but it was all I had.
“I think there was more ambrosia than blood in your veins,” he said flatly, his focus back on the road.
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Hang out with Shaw and stay out of trouble.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Stay out of trouble. Get in trouble. Make up your mind. Besides, your brother wanted to get in trouble. He’s cute and all, but somehow, I doubt you’d be okay with me entertaining him.”
He scowled and jerked the wheel, sending us down a back alley.
Oh, he didn’t like that.
The buildings on either side of us loomed overhead, cutting off the sun. I squinted around nervously. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.”
“This is my city. I can go wherever I want.” Lachlan stopped the car and reached behind his back. A second later, he tossed a gun in the cupholder. “I don’t mind if you get in trouble, princess, but I would strongly prefer you save it for when I’m around. Not my brother.”
“Why? So you can mock me? Tease me?” Drive me absolutely out of my mind?
The shadows clouding his eyes had nothing to do with the darkness of the alley. He leaned closer, the scent of him making me ache, his breath warm and laced with sweet cinnamon. “No,” he rumbled. “So I can protect you.”
I shuddered as heat danced across my skin. He’d said it last night, but the gun reinforced just how much he’d meant it. I forced myself to swallow, to wet the tongue that had dried up in my mouth, to not look away from the emerald intensity of his gaze. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
Because letting him do that was more than letting him buy me gifts or agreeing to a bargain. It was more than indebting myself to him. It was depending on him.
For a moment, his eyes glazed and the human glamour he’d worn to walk the streets of New Orleans slipped to reveal the feral fae staring back at me. “Sooner or later, you’re going to realize the only person your stubbornness is hurting is yourself.”
“Better me than someone else.” That was what he didn’t understand. It was better this way. It was easier to protect myself and the few people I’d chosen to care about if I kept myself apart. I’d been doing it for as long as I could remember. The key was to keep the list nice and short. Ciara had already wormed her way onto it, but something told me that if I let him on, too, Lach wouldn’t occupy a single spot. He would fill up the whole thing.
“You can spend your entire life shutting everyone out, Cate, but don’t be surprised when you die alone,” he said bitterly.
“That might be profound if you weren’t immortal.”
A tattoo flared along his temple, flickering in and out of sight until his human glamour settled again. Lachlan pulled back onto the road, carefully signaling and proving once again that I was not in true danger. But as he turned toward a bridge that crossed the Mississippi, he muttered so low that I almost thought I imagined it. “Even immortals bleed.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
We drove until the vibrant bustle of New Orleans faded like a memory, eventually leaving the highway for back roads.