Page 15 of Monster Bully

“You’re awake,” he said.

“And you’re back.” She had missed him while he’d been gone. She hated this strangeness between them.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Tired. Exhausted. You?”

“I don’t like sleeping without you.”

She wanted to agree with him. In the six months they’d been married, having his arms around her, protecting her, had felt wonderful. The last few nights, she barely got any sleep. That was clearly affecting the rest of her day, because she never slept through the day, but did feel absolutely drained.

Coming into the library, grabbing a book and just sitting down, she had felt how quickly sleep wanted to claim her. Like Grim, she didn’t like sleeping without him either. Staring at him now, all she wanted to do was open her arms. When he reached out to stroke her hair behind her ear, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t make a move. All those feelings she had for him were still there and were not going away.

“What did you do today?” Eve asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

This made her suddenly jerk up and as she did, she pulled away from his touch. She heard his sigh of frustration.

“You hurt someone today?” she asked. Did she want to know?

Grim stared at her and his look told her he had hurt someone and the other little factor was he didn’t care.

“Grim?”

“Don’t.”

It was the first time in their life together he’d taken that tone with her. She wasn’t used to that sound and Eve frowned.

“I accept that you’re pissed at me and you don’t like what I do. You can even hate me, but don’t try and be disappointed or even upset about the scum I killed today.” He didn’t move but his elbow now rested on his knee. He looked so deflated. “You want the truth, then here it is. The man I killed today tried to steal a child. A young girl. That is the man I killed, and the reason I did it is because today he failed in his attempt to kidnap her. Yesterday, he didn’t. He took one, and if I didn’t take matters into my own hands, there’s no telling what he would have done.”

Eve was taken aback. “What?”

“Yeah, you’re so judgmental about what I do, what I’m capable of, that you’ve not even considered the fact that I might be a fucking savior. I know I’m not a good guy, but trust me, the people I’ve removed from this earth were fucking scum.”

Eve watched as he got to his feet and then left the library without a backward glance. For several seconds all she could do was look at the spot he’d vacated.

In the past couple of days, she hadn’t considered the kind of people Grim killed or what he did, or even why he did it. She’d been so overwhelmed by feeling betrayed because he had lied to her, she hadn’t taken a moment to think about him.

Closing the book she’d been reading, and she hadn’t gotten very far, she pushed herself up off the sofa and began to follow him. He wasn’t in the hallway, but she heard the cupboards opening and closing, which could only mean the kitchen. Even though this house was large, when no one was around, every little noise seemed so much louder.

Eve stormed into the kitchen to find him with a bottle of beer in his hand.

“Then why don’t you tell me?” Eve asked.

Grim glared at her.

“You expect me to understand everything you do and yet not once have you given me two minutes of your time to explain it.”

“That’s because you ran off!”

“What do you expect? You killed someone. You tortured them and you even admitted that you didn’t tell me the truth. You certainly didn’t tell me your name. For a year I’ve been calling you Graham.”

“Technically, that is my name.”

She let out a growl. “But before you got used to me calling you Graham, you didn’t actually respond to it!” She put her hands on her hips.

He was so damn tiring with his unnecessary comebacks.