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was meant to be doing. Jerry said that he owed him for walking her back, but the reality was he’d wanted to take her home. He’d give up a limb for Indi if it meant she’d be safe.
    ‘You didn’t have to do it, you know,’ Indi said, breaking the silence for the first time.
    ‘Walk you home?’
    ‘Lie for me. Jerry knows I have a short fuse.’
    ‘He was …’ Rhett bristled over the thought, ‘touching you. Nobody gets to touch you without your permission first.’
    She shrugged. ‘I had it under control. Besides, I’m not worth losing your job over.’
    Rhett gave her a look that set her pulse pounding. ‘Of course you’re worth it Indi,’ he replied seriously. She held his gaze for a long, slow minute before walking again. She thought she was worthless, but to him, she was priceless and he would do whatever he had to do to make sure she knew that. He glanced over at her again, noticing she was shivering which wasn’t a surprise. The coat she was wearing was threadbare at best.
    ‘Are you cold?’ he asked, already pulling off his jacket to give to her.
    Stubbornly, she shook her head. ‘I’m fine,’ she replied through gritted teeth. She tried to shove her nearly-blue hands into her pockets before he could see them.
    ‘You’re not fine,’ he grunted. ‘Here. Take mine,’ he said, pulling his jacket from his arms and draping it over her shoulders. His hand accidently dragged softly over the nape of her neck as he positioned the jacket. She didn’t seem to notice as she pulled the edges closer to her body and inhaled the scent of him from the collar when she thought he wasn’t looking. A flare of possession burned through his body, but he tamped it down before it could ignite properly. He was her Guardian. His job was to keep her alive. He had no other part to play in her life.
    Exhaling a frustrated breath, he tipped his head back until he could see the stars without the interruption of buildings. It seemed endless to him—the night sky—stretching out for miles; nothing but a blank canvas ready to be painted on. When he looked back down, Indi was doing the same thing. The angle she tilted her head back at exposed her long neck to him, sending the desire to have her under his body right that moment through his veins, heating his blood and sending it shooting around his body. He looked away and ran a hand roughly through his hair.
    ‘So how did you end up living in Hell?’ he asked, trying to distract himself and his body from her, but his pounding erection pressing against the fly of his pants wasn’t interested in anything else but her.
    ‘Bad fucking luck,’ she drawled slowly, giving him a haunted smile. ‘I got kicked out of my last foster home,’ she added, looking down at her feet rather than in his eyes.
    His heart ached for her. So she was a foster kid. That explained why she kept her cards so close to her chest. But if she was a foster kid that would mean …
    ‘Your last foster home was Jerry’s parents’ place, wasn’t it?’ Pain flashed in her eyes, but she didn’t answer. ‘How long has it been since you were kicked out?’
    ‘Six months,’ she replied, threading her hands through the arms of his jacket as another gust of winter wind careened towards them. ‘Do you want your coat back?’ she asked, her teeth still chattering a little. He could see the line of goose bumps on the skin of her neck, and wanted nothing more than to run his tongue along them and taste her skin. He shook his head, remembering that he hadn’t answered her question.
    ‘No. I’m fine,’ he replied hastily. His body ran at a healthy one hundred and five in both of his skins. There were definitely some perks to being a werewolf. ‘You like living here?’ he asked.
    ‘Not really. No. But it was all that I could afford that wasn’t in Hicksville.’
    ‘Where are your parents?’
    She didn’t answer for a long time, but Rhett didn’t push her. She’d answer when she was ready. ‘I