Chapter TWO-KIAN

I smell her before I see her.

Beneath the stench of stale beer, cheap cologne, fried food, and too many men who don’t know how to bathe, there’s something else.

Something sweet.

Something pure.

Something mine.

Fuck. No.

I slam a mental fist against the thought, but it doesn’t matter. That word lingers in my head, in my blood, in the part of me that isn’t human enough to ignore what she is to me.

I can’t have her. I know I can’t.

But I can’t stay away, either.

For weeks now, I’ve been lingering outside, parked just far enough away that no one notices, just watching. Protecting.

She works too damn hard. Almost every night, I watch her wipe down that bar, pick up after assholes who don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.

I want to help. I want to do something.

But what the hell am I supposed to do? Walk in there and tell her she belongs to a monster?

Yeah. That’d go over real well.

Arliss doesn’t know I’m here.

No one does.

She’s my secret.