Kill Me Softly

Chapter One

One of my earliest memories of Ryder took place when we were only five years old. We'd just had our first training session together and already, the incubus unsettled me. It was a feeling that told me that this boy would either be my best friend in the entire world or my most hated enemy, there was no in-between.

It's always been that way with Ryder, though. Everything is either one extreme or the other.

Anyway, we'd been sitting on the stone steps that lead to the front door of the facility in silence. Unable to hold my tongue any longer, I'd turned to the black haired boy and said, "I don't like you."

He hadn't even looked at me when he said back to me, "you don't have to."

It'd been such a strange thing for a boy so young to say, but then, it hadn't fazed me. "Why not?" I'd demanded, shoving my windblown curls from my face with chubby hands.

Ryder had turned to me then and I remember his blue eyes being such a vivid blue with the strangest determination in them that they'd burned themselves into my memory.

"Because," he'd said with certainty, "I'm going to make you change your mind."

Now that I look at him as we stand under a thickly canopied tree waiting for the rain to cease its downpour, I have the childish urge to tell the bastard that I don't like him once more. Instead, I glare at the back of his head with all the hate that I can muster. How can he stand there, so cool and confident after everything he's done to me? What joy does he get from destroying my happiness?

"As much as I love the feel of your eyes on me, darlin', it would be a shame if you bloodied your pretty little hand squeezing that branch to death," Ryder comments lazily, ringing out the jacket I'd thrown back at him once we'd found cover.

I look down, surprised to see my right hand is clutching a damp branch protruding from the tree I stand under so tightly that my knuckles are white. The dampness I feel on my palm tells me that the wood has pierced the skin. I release the branch, ignoring the now sharp pain as I clench my hand.

Ryder turns to me suddenly, his icy blue eyes zeroing in on my injured hand. A line creases between his eyebrows. "You're hurt," he states. The incubus removes the tie from around his neck and tosses it at me. I catch it, but just barely. "Wrap it with that to stop the bleeding."

He turns around again, as if the sight of me is nauseating. Nonetheless, I start wrapping my hand in his tie, unable to stop myself from looking at him all the while.

A lot has changed about Ryder while I've been away.

His hair has grown out, for one. The usual short, cropped hair has been traded for an inky black mane that reaches the nape of his neck. The midnight locks now look almost blue from the rain. My eyes follow the path down his back, the musculature of it now visible through his soaking wet shirt.

Ryder hadn't exactly been scrawny before I left but now . . . he's practically the size of a bear. Every inch of that tan, rippling body is lethal. Octavian and my parents have created the perfect weapon. Only, this time, it's not me.

So lost in thought was I, that I hadn't realized the toned back I'd been staring at had turned into a very muscular chest.

"It's not polite to stare, darlin'," his voice rumbles with the slightest hint of amusement. My eyes snap up to meet a pair of sly blue ones.

"I wasn't-" I start to retort, then I stop, forcing myself to calm down; to not take the bait he'd laid out. I let out a breath, wondering where the new nickname came from but let it go. "What are we doing?"

"We," he smirks slightly, "are waiting for the rain to stop."

Annoyed, I start to tell him off, but he holds up one of his large hands. "I'm taking you to my father," he tells me seriously, the arrogance disappearing from his expression.