Page 29 of Heartless Enemy
Panic immediately crashed into me again.
I turned back to Eve and shook my head. “I can’t do it.”
If it had been shorter, I would have been able to weather it. If it had just been a short tunnel underneath the wall to get inside the building, I could have suppressed the panic long enough to get through it and out the other side. But this tunnel ran under the street and then underneath the entire parliament grounds before it finally reached the building on the other side. It was too far. Too much time spent in darkness and surrounded by narrow walls.
I didn’t have a lot of limits. But this was one of them.
I couldn’t do it.
“I know,” Eve replied. There was absolutely no judgement in her tone, or in her eyes as she met my gaze. “We’ll find another way. Let’s go back.”
Leaving the torch for me, she scooted around so that she was facing the other way. And then she started forward at a brisk pace.
I grabbed the torch and followed.
Those fucking walls stared me down again, seeming to press closer and closer. I sucked in a shuddering breath.
“Do you want me to talk so that I can distract you or stay silent so that you can focus?” Eve asked as if she had heard the returning panic in that breath alone.
“Talk,” I managed to press out.
“Alright. Do you know something you did that I found unreasonably hot?”
I couldn’t manage a reply this time, but Eve didn’t seem to mind. She just kept talking.
“That time when you were blackmailing those two guys from that other House.” She hummed as if in thought. “Was it the House of Fire? Or Thousand Eagles? Anyway… They said they’d do anything. And do you know what you said?Kneel. Lick my boots. And they did.” She sighed. “Fuck, that was so hot.”
A short laugh, barely more than a breath, made it past the clawing panic in my chest and spilled across my lips.
“If you remember, I left the room shortly after that. Do you know why?” There was a teasing note in her voice now. “I went straight to my room and fucked myself with my own fingers while playing that scene over and over in my head.”
I let out something between a groan and a laugh.
Eve chuckled. “Oh I thought you might like that.”
With a smirk in her voice, she launched into another similar story as we made our way back through the tunnel.
And with the sound of her voice keeping the panic and madness at bay, I managed to make it there without shattering completely.
Chapter12
After we made it out of the tunnel, Levi threw up five times in the alley outside the building. My heart had almost shattered seeing him like that. I still didn’t know why he reacted the way he did to enclosed spaces, but if I ever found the person responsible for it, I was going to skin them alive.
“Welcome to the Red Moon,” said a gorgeous woman with auburn hair. There was a genuine smile on her lips as she nodded to both me and Levi. “It’s such an honor to have you and your friend here, Mr. Arden. What can I get for you?”
“A bottle of whiskey.” Levi slid his gaze to me. When I nodded, he added, “Two glasses.”
“Of course,” she replied.
“And I would like to speak with a woman who is known to entertain older men,” I said. “Preferably a blond woman.”
She blinked and flicked a glance at Levi. Since he was only twenty-seven, he couldn’t be classified as an old man by any sort of standard.
Levi just looked back at her with his usual air of absolute command.
“Oh, of course,” she hurriedly said, her gaze darting back to me. “That would be Vera. I’ll send her right over.”
I nodded. She quickly moved towards the bar to get our whiskey and to speak to another woman there. While the second woman presumably went in search of Vera, the redhead returned and placed two glasses and a bottle of whiskey on our table. Then she withdrew again.