Page 72 of Wicked Enemy

He grabbed my wrist. Holding it in a firm grip, he stared down at me with such a serious expression that I laughed again. Then I pulled my hand back. Or tried to. He didn’t release my wrist, so it didn’t work.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded.

I tried to pull out of his grip again, but the movement made my unsteady legs wobble, and I stumbled sideways instead.

A clattering sound filled the air as something slipped from my pocket and landed on the stones. I glanced down at it. It was a pale pipe. Where had I seen that before?

Finally releasing my wrist, Levi bent down and picked it up. His gray eyes were wide with shock, for some reason, as he stared between the pipe and me.

“Fucking hell, spitfire. You’ve been smoking dreamcore.”

It hadn’t sounded like a question, but it must have been, so I giggled and then answered, “No.”

“Eve,” he said, and reached for me.

I danced back and out of his reach. But the move made me trip, and I stumbled sideways a few steps before my shoulder hit the wall of the building. It didn’t hurt though. Placing a hand on the wall, I began to push myself off it.

Confusion drifted through me as I looked at my arm. There was a purple tree where I was bracing myself on the wall, and my entire forearm had just gone right through it. I blinked. Turning slowly, I looked at the rest of the plants. They flickered erratically.

I blinked again.

Then they were gone.

Reality crashed back into me as the last of the dreamcore disappeared from my system. And with it came the crushing guilt and regret and the copious amounts of alcohol I had consumed.

My legs buckled and I slid down along the wall until I was sitting on the street. All those terrible emotions washed over me again, and they felt even stronger now in comparison to how good it had felt when I was high on dreamcore. I sucked in a strangled breath and was horrified to hear a sob escape my throat.

That broke the dam.

Tears welled up in my eyes and flowed down my cheeks like an unstoppable flood. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around my legs and hugged them tightly while I bawled my eyes out.

Levi dropped to his knees in front of me. The worry and concern in his eyes as he searched my face just made me cry harder. Reaching forward, he cupped my cheeks.

“It’s alright, spitfire,” he said, his voice soft. “You’re alright. You’re just drunk and coming down from a high. It will pass.”

“No, it won’t,” I sobbed, tears still streaming down my face. “It’s all my fault. I ruined everything. I’m a horrible person and I don’t deserve to be happy.”

Pain flickered in his eyes. Dropping his hands from my face, he shifted so that he was sitting with his back to the wall instead, and then reached out and pulled me onto his lap. His strong arms wrapped around my shaking body, holding me close to his chest as he rested his chin on top of my head.

“Yes, you do,” he whispered, so softly that I almost couldn’t hear him. “You deserve all the happiness in the world.”

He just held me like that while I continued crying into his leather armor until there were no more tears left inside me. And then he kept holding me after that too.

Once my chest was no longer heaving, and the tears had dried into salty streaks on my face, Levi at last pushed to his feet. But he kept his arms around me, pulling me up with him. Then he released me.

I had nothing left, not one ounce of strength left in my entire body, and I was still blackout wasted, so my legs just buckled again.

Levi’s hands shot down, grabbing me before I could hit the ground.

“Fucking hell, spitfire,” he said as he pulled me upright. His eyes swept over me, assessing. “How much have you had to drink?”

“About half a bottle of whiskey,” I mumbled. “Or maybe two thirds.”

“By all hell.”

My stomach lurched as Levi bent down and lifted me into his arms. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around his neck. He started down the street.

“Come on,” he said, not sounding strained in the slightest even though he was carrying my entire body weight. “I’ll take you somewhere safe until you’ve sobered up enough to go home. Can’t have you passing out and lying defenseless in an alley for someone to take advantage.”