It's not a dark mask he puts on.
It'shimwithoutany masks.
I don’t know if that’s an exciting or altogether terrifying epiphany.
“W-what are you doing?!” I blurt.
Wow, smooth.
A shiver drags like a blade up my spine and the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle as he looms over me.
“Why are you running alone at night?”
God,that voice. It’s gravel and honey. It’s stony, flinty, rough, and yet finishes so smooth that it makes me feel like a cat luxuriating into her owner's touch when his sentences end.
Well, it's official.
Iamderanged.
He’s frowning at me as I swallow the thickness in my throat and find my voice.
“I—because I like to run?”
“At night,” he growls deeply. “Alone. As awoman.”
I suck on my bottom lip and draw a shaky breath in through my nose. “I mean, it’s the Knightsblood campus. It feels…safe enough?”
Am I asking him, or telling him?
Achilles lifts a single dark brow. “And yet you kept turning around to check if you were being followed.”
I frown. “You saw that?”
He nods.
“Because you were the one following me?”
The ghost of a smile flickers over his chiseled jawline.
“You look nervous,” his velvety voice rumbles in the dark space between us.
When I don’t answer, because I don’t knowhow, he moves a little closer to me, and another chill drags up my spine.
“Do I make you nervous, little prey?”
I exhale shakily. “I—I don’t know.” My gaze snaps to his. “Maybe,” I say quietly.
“Really. Why is that.”
“Maybe because of what happened the last two times our paths crossed?”
That ghost of amusement glints at the corners of his lips again. “And whatdidhappen those times?”
My face throbs with heat.
“You know,” I mumble.
Achilles cocks a brow. “Is this where you accuse me of assaulting you again?”