Page 35 of Cinder's Trial

“Let’s just say it didn’t work out. Before you ask, she decided I was too emotionally detached. She wasn’t wrong.”

“Then it wasn’t love.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because when you love someone, you do everything in your power to make them feel special. You understand them and their needs. You want them to be happy.”

He didn’t say anything for a second, and I thought he’d fallen asleep, only for him to say, “But what if that person doesn’t reciprocate?”

“Then perhaps they weren’t the right person after all.”

Funny how his words and my own advice applied to me. Levi didn’t see me as a possible love interest no matter how he made me feel. Could it have been love? Most definitely, but I wouldn’t chase after a man who made it clear he had no interest.

The room went quiet after that, and I eventually fell asleep, only to wake up to tiny feet scratching and scampering. I sat up and, in the faint light from the window, discerned my mice racing up the bed frame and across the mattress to the nightstand to climb onto the digital clock with its red numerals.

Since I didn’t want to wake Levi, I didn’t speak. Even more oddly, neither did the mice. It bothered to see my little friends sitting there swaying above a time of 12:56 a.m.

Despite me not making a sound, Levi suddenly asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The mice are acting odd.”

I heard the rustle of sheets as he slid out of his bed. “Odd how?”

“They just ran up to the clock. I think they might be sleepwalking but as a group?” I ended my statement on a query.

He groaned. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know? Hickory, dickory, dock.”

I could have slapped my sleep-muddled mind. “You think they’re caught in the rhyme.”

“Guess we’ll find out in two minutes.”

I didn’t expect him to perch on my bed to watch with me as the numbers flipped to 12:59. Having him so near made me shiver, and he noticed. His arm went around me, tucking me into his side.

“You’re okay, princess.”

Should I explain that lusty thoughts and not fear made me quiver when he got near?

Nope. I snuggled closer, inhaling the scent of him.

His arm wrapped around me far enough his hand rested on my outer thigh. The thumb lightly stroked, and that didn’t help my awareness of him.

At exactly one o’clock, the mice ran down and scurried off to the nest they’d made. But Levi didn’t move.

It led to me quipping, “See. Not all the rhymes are deadly.”

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

“My mice wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Wasn’t talking about them,” he muttered.

I shifted sideways so I could see his strong profile. “Guess we could go back to bed.”

“Yeah.” One word and yet, as his gaze met mine, he didn’t leave.