Free Midnight Awakening by Lara Adrián

her request that he help her bring her psychic gift to heel. She’d surprised him with the suggestion. The idea that any female, particularly a sheltered Darkhaven widow like her, would think to put herself in his care for any reason was beyond his comprehension. As if he could be trusted for something like that.
    Yeah. Not fucking likely.
    Elise made it easy for him to avoid the issue. In the hours since he’d shut her down, she hadn’t uttered another word to him. She busied herself around the apartment, making up the futon, washing the breakfast dishes, dusting the bookshelves, going thirty minutes on the treadmill, and generally keeping as far away from him as seemed possible in the cramped quarters.
    He’d heard her in the shower a while ago and had allowed himself a few minutes’ sleep where he sat on the floor, but the water was off now and he was awake, listening to Elise getting dressed behind the closed door. She came out in blue jeans and a hooded Harvard sweatshirt that fell halfway down her thighs. Her short blond hair was towel-dried and as shiny as gold, setting off the pale lavender of her eyes.
    Eyes that slid to him in a chilly glare as she went to the closet in the hallway and pulled a white down vest off a hanger. She bent into the closet and took out a pair of tan suede boots.
    “What are you doing?” Tegan asked her as she silently suited up for the outdoors.
    “I have to go out.” She closed the closet door and zipped up the thick vest. “You probably noticed my refrigerator is practically empty. I’m hungry. I need to eat, and I need to pick up a few things.”
    Tegan stood up, aware that he was scowling. “The trance won’t hold if you leave, you know.”
    “Then I’ll just have to try to manage without it.”
    Elise coolly walked over to the counter and picked up the MP3 player that lay there. She tucked the slim black case into the front pocket of her jeans, then threaded the earbuds under her sweatshirt and let them dangle down the front of her chest. She didn’t pick up the blade that had been left on the counter from her Minion hunting of the night before, and Tegan didn’t detect that she had any other weapons on her person either.
    She wouldn’t look at him as she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. If you leave before I get back, I’d appreciate it if you locked up. I have my keys.”
    Damn it. She might be hungry like she said, but he could tell by the rigid line of her spine that the female had a point to prove here.
    “Elise,” he said, moving toward her as she reached for the apartment door. If he wanted to stop her, all it would take was a thought. He knew it, and by the look on her face as she turned to look at him now, so did she. “I know you’re angry about what I said earlier, but it’s the truth. You’re in no shape to go on like this.”
    When he took another step, concluding he might as well tell her that he’d decided to turn her over to the Darkhaven for her own safety, she closed her hand around the doorknob and sharply twisted it open.
    She couldn’t have chosen a more effective weapon against him.
    Bright afternoon sunlight streamed in from the vestibule and hall, driving Tegan back with a hiss. He leaped out of the path of the searing daylight, and from under the shielding arm he held up over his eyes, he watched as Elise’s pointed stare held him and she calmly strode out, closing the door behind her.

     

    Elise took her time walking to the corner market and shopping for a few basic groceries. With a small bag of items in hand, she strolled up the sidewalk, away from her neighborhood block. The chill air was bracing against her cheeks, but she needed the cold to help clear her head.
    Tegan had been right about his trance wearing off once she was gone from her apartment. Beneath the audial grate of electric guitars and screaming rock lyrics pouring into her ears from Camden’s iPod, she could