Erix's breathing was heaving, his chest moving rapidly against my back. I turned in his arms to face him. I gasped when his dark, almost black eyes stared back at me. 

"It took you long enough to come here," he said, eerily calm for his breathing. 

"I stopped to talk to Wyatt at the door. What's wrong?"

He released one of his arms around me and reached out to close the door, giving us privacy, then wrapped it tightly around me again. 

I backed up from our closeness and gazed into the dark depths as he watched me with. "I had to go to the community today," I told him....