Becoming my Protector had saved Zayne’s life, so that was a good thing—a great thing. Zayne hadn’t hesitated to take the bond, and that was before he’d found out it was always supposed to have been him. But it also meant Zayne and I... Well, we could never be more than what we were now, and it didn’t matter how badly I wanted to be more or how much I liked him. It didn’t matter that he was the first guy I was ever seriously into.

I tipped my head back instead of suffocating myself with the pillow. Peanut became a blur as he drifted toward the curtain, though that had nothing to do with his ghostly form. “Is Zayne up?”

“He is, but he’s not here. He left you a note in the kitchen. I read it while he wrote it.” Peanut sounded rather proud. “It says he went to see someone named Nic. I think that was one of the guys who came with him to the community? Anyway, he left maybe a half hour ago.”

Nic was short for Nicolai, the Washington, DC, clan leader. Zayne probably had unfinished business with him since he’d left whatever meeting they’d been having last night to come find me.

Zayne had felt my emotions through the bond. That strange new connection had led him right to the treehouse. I wasn’t sure if I was amazed by that, annoyed or really weirded out. Probably a mixture of all three.

“Wonder why he didn’t wake me.” Pushing the cover aside, I scooted to the edge of the bed.

“He actually came in here and checked on you.”

I froze, praying I hadn’t been drooling on myself or doing anything weird. “He did?”

“Yep. I thought he was going to wake you. Looked like he was debating it, but all he did was pull the blanket over your shoulders. I thought it was totally bodacious of him.”

I wasn’t sure what bodacious meant, but I thought it was... God, it was sweet of him.

It was so like Zayne.

I might have known him for only a few weeks, but I knew enough to be able to picture him carefully pulling the comforter over me, and doing it so gently that he didn’t wake me.

My chest squeezed as if my heart had fallen into a meat grinder. “I need to shower.” I stood on legs I expected to be shaky but that were surprisingly strong and stable.

“Yeah, you do.”

Ignoring the comment, I checked my phone. I’d missed a call from Jada. My stomach tumbled. I placed the phone down and padded on bare feet to the bathroom, flipped on the light and winced at the sudden brightness. My eyes did not care for bright light of any kind. Or dark or shadowy areas, either. Actually, my eyes pretty much just sucked 95.7 percent of the time.