“Except she can wear nice dresses, but I can’t?” I pictured Laney, her pale, skinny arms and bony shoulders, her slender hips and long legs. She’d wear something designer, something made for her. She’d look like she stepped from the pages of a catalog. I looked down at myself and saw the truth. I was never meant to wear dresses. I was meant to wear fucking armor. The only thing right about this stupid outfit was the lethal blades strapped to my thighs. My heart hammering, I whipped two of them from their sheaths and struck like a snake, whirling before he could get his guard up. In a fraction of a second, I ducked to avoid his grasping hand and drove him back into the wall with my shoulder.

My seriously toned, decidedly non-bony shoulder.

Malachi’s gaze traveled slowly from one knife, the blade of which was less than an inch from his throat, to the other, the tip of which was positioned at an upward angle between his legs. Something dark and dangerous stirred in his eyes, a look that startled me in its familiarity—he’d looked at me this way the day he’d kissed me on the training mat. Fragile hope mixed with the boiling anger in my chest, stealing my breath, riveting my eyes to his face.

So I got to watch while his expression smoothed into a blank mask. “Was that necessary?” he asked.

I retreated as quickly as I’d attacked, my cheeks hot as Michael’s forge. My fists were clenched so hard over my knives that my knuckles felt like they were about to splinter.

No, it wasn’t necessary.

And if I didn’t get out of here, I was going to do it again.

Malachi reached out to touch my arm again, but I jerked away. He sighed. “Lela, please—”

“I’m going to get changed for patrol.” Without looking at him again, I ran up the stairs.

TWENTY-NINE

TWENTY-NINE

IAN HAD BEEN RIGHT—petit fours kicked ass.

When he’d called on the morning of prom, I’d already been up for hours, practicing with my knives, knowing today would probably bring the biggest fight of my life, one I hoped wouldn’t end with my soul being ripped from my body. I’d been so close to saying no to him, but then realized this might be my last chance to just … have fun. Simple, easy fun. So there we were, walking out of this boutique bakery in Barrington with our mouths full.

He unlocked his SUV and opened the door for me; then he handed me the flat box containing a dozen more of the beautiful little iced cakes. “What you expected?”

“Better.”

He shut my door and went around to the driver’s side. He gave me a nervous glance as he fastened his seat belt. “Which part?”