Page 75 of Burn for Her

“I’m fine,” she said quietly.

This was going to take time to process. She was far from fine, but what made her fearful wasn’t what happened. It was what was going to happen. Lena slammed her heart into a box and followed them into Dorian’s house. Fine, white powder coated everything. The smell of chemicals from the fire extinguisher and the remaining smoke knocked her out of her stupor, so she grabbed her purse and went over to Dorian’s line up of killer toys.

“Take your pick.” Dorian squeezed her shoulders, lightly massaging them. “You won’t need them on pack land, but if you’d feel safer loaded, then by all means, take anything of mine you see.”

Pack land. What the hell was that? “Where are we going?”

And why was she so willing to leave? Lena didn’t back down from anyone, ever. No matter how scary a situation got, Lena didn’t back down. She embraced it. Sometimes almost hadn’t survived it.

“I’m taking you someplace safe.”

“You said the mansion was safe. The Wicked Garden, was supposed to be safe. This house, was supposed to be safe.” Lena turned around and shoved her finger in his chest. “Nowhere is safe, Dorian. We can’t run forever.”

“I don’t have forever,” he said quietly. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather know you’re safe so I can—”

“Die in peace?” Lena rounded on him again and shoved her finger back in his face. “You bring me into this life and then have the balls to abandon me to wolves?”

She didn’t know then, how very accurate that accusation was. But she was about to find out.

Dorian strangled the steering wheel and kept his gaze on the road. He refused to let Lena drive. So long as he had his vision, he was going to take control and cling to it for however long he had left. Lena kept quiet for the past three hours. Every once in a while, he caught her swiping her cheeks and smelled her salty tears.

He couldn’t do a damned thing to console her.

She was right. Dorian was taking her onto Lycan territory and hoped like hell they showed her the same grace and mercy they once showed him when he stumbled into their lives half-dead and in dire need of help.

Lucian had headed back to the mansion to do damage control. Again. Holy Hell, he owed Lucian so much and now there was no time to repay that vampire for all his devotion. Dorian looked behind him again, feeling like an asshole for not having a rearview mirror in his car.

“It would help if your fancy car came with mirrors,” Lena crossed her arms and rested her head against the window.

“I made it a habit to stay clear of them.”

“Until me.”

Dorian swallowed around the lump in his throat. She probably felt rejected and used and he didn’t blame her for it. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s life or death. I get the complication. But it didn’t save you, did it?”

Her tone drove him to the brink of madness. He wished he could kiss the pain out of her voice. Soothe her worried mind. Fuck the anger and resentment out of her body. But he couldn’t. What happened was a mistake on his part.

All of this was a big mistake on his part.

“I’m sorry,” he said for the billionth time.

Lena’s sadness dripped in her voice when she replied, “Me too.”

Lena fell asleep and when she woke, there was no way of telling where they were or how far they’d gone. She really didn’t care either. Going by the sunlight, it was past lunchtime though. With all that had happened, she wasn’t even hungry. As they headed toward “pack land” she went from hurt, to angry, to depressed, to salty.

The car was too silent. Lena hated it.

“My parents hated me.” She pressed herself against the passenger side door as if the more space she put between her and Dorian, the less she’d want to touch him.

“I’m… sorry. That must have been hell.”

“They died in a plane crash on their way home from a business venture in Sweden.” Lena was nineteen at the time. “They left me a small fortune, but I guess you knew about that when you stalked me.”

“Lucian said you were the heir to the McKay fortune, but I didn’t know what that meant. He and I don’t run in the same social circles.”

Lena bit her lip and tried to figure out what that was supposed to mean. Dorian and Lucian looked like well-dressed models who just stepped out of a magazine. But clothes didn’t make the man. Attitude did. Lena wondered if they would’ve run into each other somewhere along the way even if he hadn’t seen her in the mirror.