Burned » Kai Parker

20

Kai's POV

I rubbed a towel over my wet hair, with a touch more force than the task required. The hot shower was supposed to alleviate the stress and tension binding my muscles, cool me down enough so I could fucking think, but my earlier confrontation with Eva was on a ceaseless loop my mind. So, I was only getting antsier by the second.

I tossed the towel in the hamper angrily and dressed myself in jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. It hadn't been until about eight o'clock that I realized spending this night in wasn't going to do anything but magnify my thoughts about the infuriating witch who lived a few doors down. I was going to the bar, marking the first time in a little while that I had thought to visit the spot. Eva had been a consuming enough distraction. Now, she's what I needed to be distracted from.

I grabbed my coat and car keys, then stalked out of the apartment. I purposely avoided looking at Eva's door as I passed it, and buried the desire to invite myself in and shake her back to rationality. Clearly, the woman had lost hers and it wasn't my responsibility to get it back.

She could do what the hell she wanted. I'd offered to train out of mistaken generosity. If she deemed it all useless, fine. It wasn't like I didn't have other tasks waiting on my attention. Now, my Monday nights would be free. That opened up several doors of opportunity.

Yet I felt nothing but dull emptiness, thinking of the Mondays that would stretch ahead of today.

Sue me, I'd started to enjoy her company. A lot. Way fucking more than I liked being around anyone, but I couldn't blind myself to the fact that she was doing everything possible to distance herself from me.

Take the hint, Kai, she had been practically screaming at me. She wanted to keep it professional, and just when I thought it was a minor setback in the inevitable path for her to realize we weren't capable of that, she went and fucked Derek Whittaker. It made jealousy burn in me, seeing her silent admittance to that. It made me want to rip his limbs off so he couldn't touch her again, couldn't ever have the privilege of feeling her soft skin again, because apparently, the possessive streak from sociopathy was choosing this opportunity to blaze.

In hindsight, maybe fabricating a lie about Elizabeth was the result of bad impulses, but for a moment, I swore I saw the same jealousy that I was enduring burn in Eva's narrowed eyes.

While I hadn't wanted any other woman but her in the past month and a half, it was pretty simple for her to continue to make the most of, in her words, what Portland had to offer. As if the fucking Ivy witch could even be described as a viable offering. More like a weed in the city that needed to be yanked out of its population.

The hint was taken. Message received. Except it wasn't even about maintaining professionalism anymore, because now, she was cutting her ties with me entirely. And that, for some reason, made my chest ache, like she'd reached straight into my chest with her magic and struck ruthlessly. It was weird. I felt a little like I was dying. Or coming down with some illness. I should stop by the Gemini apothecary tomorrow to find some sort of easement herb.

I slammed the door to my car shut once I was sitting in the driver's seat and took a second to rub my palms over my face roughly. How the hell had this night, or, hell, the entire week, taken such a turn for the worse?

I knew Eva had some barriers to break down when it came to her perception of her magic, but her little spiel today had been launched at me with no precedence. She might've had concerns, a few lingering doubts, but she still showed up to train. Every week. The full moon was an exception I could understand, but what happened today had my bullshit radar blaring.