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the moonlight shimmering against the metallic surface of the gun before he tucked it back into his jeans. He crouched down beside her, his expression impossible to read as he ran his sharp gaze over her battered face. For once, she didn’t flinch from his nearness—until he started to reach forward, as if he would push back the tangled fall of her hair.
    “Don’t! Do not touch my hair!” she growled, scurrying back from him like a crab. It seemed crazy, but that was the only thing she remembered clearly from her torture, and she couldn’t stand the thought of a man’s hands in her hair. “Never touch my hair!”
    He lifted his hands to show her he understood and moved back to his full height, taking a step back to give her some space. Even though Raine knew his bloodthirsty anger wasn’t for her, but the ones who’d hurt her,the murderous look in his dark eyes still made her shiver with fear.
    “It’s okay, Raine.” His husky voice was low and calm, as if he were trying to soothe a frightened animal. And that’s no doubt what she looked like to him, with her fangs extended and her talons dripping blood. “You know I’m not going to hurt you.”
    “I told you to leave me alone,” she muttered, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her wrist in a stiff, uncoordinated motion. “What are you doing here?”
    Silence, and then a rough, graveled response. “They had you once. I won’t let them have you again.”
    “I didn’t need your help. And I don’t want it!” She barely managed to push herself to her feet, having to use the storefront behind her for support. “I don’t want you here!”
    Great, she thought, the instant the words had left her mouth. Now I sound like a petulant child throwing a tantrum.
    Instead of shouting back at her, like she was sure he wanted to do, McConnell took a deep breath, no doubt trying to control his rage. But he still sounded pissed when he jerked his chin toward the fallen Casus and asked, “Are they the reason you’re in Paris? Were you hunting these assholes by yourself?”
    She gave a jerky nod, then retracted her talons and fangs. “The last one you killed—Carlson. He was the one I came for. But I wanted him killed with a Marker, not a gun!”
    “I don’t fucking believe it.” Obviously losing a bit of the hold on his fury, he ground the words out, his voice more guttural than she’d ever heard it. “What the hell, Raine? Are you trying to get yourself killed? You got a bloody death wish?”
    “If I did,” she shouted, “you’d be just the man to handle it, wouldn’t you?”
    He flinched, looking as if she’d struck him, and a sliver of shame immediately sliced through her insides, making her cringe. In all the weeks she’d known him, they’d never once discussed his past. They’d never discussed anything, simply suffering the heavy silences that were always wedged between them like soundproof sheets of glass. But now that glass had been shattered.
    He spent a few moments scrubbing his hands down his face, then finally said, “I’m trying to come up with a logical reason for why you’d be willing to take this kind of risk, but I can’t. So you’re going to have to explain it to me.”
    Raine lifted her brows. “You’ve talked to my mother, McConnell. If she told you I was here, surely she told you the reason why.”
    “Actually,” he muttered, crossing those big arms over his chest, “all she gave me was your location. Said I had to figure out the rest on my own.”
    A tight smile caught at the corner of her mouth and she had to choke down a lump of emotion. “Well, that sounds like my mother.”
    “We’re not leaving until you tell me why you’re here, Raine.”
    Knowing that she had to give him some kind of explanation, or he really would make her stay there all night, she squared her shoulders and got on with it. “It’s just some unfinished business that I’m taking care of. It doesn’t concern either you or your