Chapter 53
Raven
His eyes scanned me with calculated precision, as if searching for evidence of my activities. I forced my expression to remain neutral while my mind raced through possible responses.
"Just a family dinner at my uncle's," I replied with practiced casualness, stepping into the living room. "Things ran longer than expected."
I considered my options. Ignore him. Head straight to my room. Pretend the most dangerous man in the Western Hemisphere wasn't casually lounging in my living room at midnight, clearly waiting for me.
As I attempted to silently glide past the couch, Nash's voice cut through the silence again.
"You're different tonight."
I froze mid-step. My face remained neutral, but my mind raced through alibis.
"Different?" I asked, injecting innocent confusion into my voice. "I'm just tired."
Nash leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Under the dim lamp light, his features looked like they'd been carved from marble by someone with a grudge against mediocrity.
"No," he said, eyes narrowing. "There's something else. An energy. Excitement, maybe." His gaze traveled over me, clinical and knowing.
My heartbeat stuttered. Shit. How could he possibly know? I hadn't left a single trace of my handiwork—not a speck of blood, not a single wrinkle in my clothes. I'd been meticulous as always.
Then again, I was still adjusting to this teenage body. As the Phantom, I'd killed hundreds without so much as a flicker of emotion. But in this high school vessel? The rush of taking lives created an almost electric current beneath my skin, a high that proved frustratingly difficult to conceal.
"Is it because you saw me?" he asked, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
I nearly choked on my own breath. Did he seriously just—
"Excuse me?" I managed.
Talk about narcissism reaching Olympic levels. The thought of explaining that my excitement had nothing to do with him and everything to do with ending nineteen lives less than an hour ago almost made me laugh. Although, if I were being brutally honest with myself, standing this close to Nash Wilder did trigger an entirely different kind of adrenaline rush.
"I, uh... this... maybe?" I stammered, my legendary eloquence apparently on vacation. "I really should get some sleep."
I turned toward my bedroom, already calculating the probability that he'd follow me and wondering if I should reach for the knife taped under my nightstand or the one behind my headboard.
Warm fingers wrapped around my wrist.
Every nerve in my body short-circuited at once.
Nash Wilder was touching me. Touching me.
The infamous leader of Ares Legion—a man whose touch allegedly came with a death sentence—had his fingers on my skin. And they weren't cold, as I'd somehow expected. They were warm. Almost soft.
My body's response was immediate and mortifying. Heat bloomed across my skin like wildfire, starting at the point of contact and racing outward. My brain helpfully reminded me of what Finn had said about Nash's severe mysophobia—about how women who'd been touched by Nash Wilder ended up dead.
Yet here he was, willingly making contact. With me.
What game is this?
I jerked my hand away, perhaps a beat too late to be casual. Nash smiled—a predator's smile that showed just enough teeth to remind you what they were for.
"My apologies," he said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "I simply wanted to ask if I might see your room."
Every instinct honed over years of wetwork and espionage screamed at me to refuse. To maintain what little privacy barrier existed between us. To keep this man as far from my personal space as possible.
Instead, I heard myself say, "Sure," and pushed open my bedroom door.
What the actual fuck, Raven? I silently berated myself. Did you just invite the head of a global military empire into your bedroom? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Or worse—exposed?
Nash stepped in behind me, closing the door with a soft click that somehow sounded like a jail cell locking.
His eyes methodically scanned my room, taking in the plain walls, the generic comforter, the distinct lack of personality in every corner. I watched him analyze the space, cataloging every detail, and felt distinctly exposed despite being fully dressed.
"This room," he said, turning slowly, "doesn't suit you at all."
I stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's bland. Uninspired." Nash ran his fingertips along my dresser. "Not like you."
He began moving toward me with deliberate steps, like a panther approaching cornered prey. I instinctively clutched my shirt closer to my neck, terrified that the chain holding Satan's Heart might become visible.
If Nash discovered that particular artifact around my neck... game over.
"Not like you," he repeated, now close enough that I could feel his breath, "who is mysterious. Full of contradictions. Exhilarating."
My heart was hammering against my ribs with such force I was certain he could hear it. During my career as the Phantom, I'd faced down entire tactical teams without my pulse rising. I'd had my share of sexual encounters—efficient, physical, forgettable. But this? This shortness of breath, this heat pooling low in my abdomen, this overwhelming awareness of another person's proximity?
This was new. And terrifying.
Nash was so close now that I could see the individual flecks of gold in his green eyes. I tried to speak, to put distance between us, but my muscles had apparently staged a mutiny against my brain. My body—this teenager's body I now inhabited—was responding to him like a compass needle to magnetic north.
I was leaning toward him, gravity itself seeming to pull us together, when Cole's voice shattered the moment.
"Raven! I'm home! Where are you?"
Nash didn't move back immediately. Instead, he held my gaze for one endless second, his eyes promising that whatever this was, it wasn't over.
And God help me, some traitorous part of me was looking forward to the next round.