Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Panting, I checked myself, framing her face in my hands and trying to slow the haphazard pounding of my heart.
“Brinley,” I grunted, her name jagged shards of glass.
In restraint, I rocked my forehead against hers.
Her eyes were still closed tight, hands steel bands where they were bound in my shirt.
She only squeezed her eyes tighter, her words thin rasps. “Don’t stop. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
“And it would kill me to hurt you, and I refuse to be one of the bastards who has.”
“Don’t you want me?” Her voice was something I didn’t recognize.
Small.
Ashamed.
I pulled back, gripping onto her face. “Want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life, which is clearly an indication that I shouldn’t have you. Won’t be another monster taking advantage of you.”
I didn’t know who they were, but I knew they were there. Could see the grim history stretching out like an eternal road at the backs of her bleak gaze.
Drawing me down it like a beast searching for prey.
I’d hunt them.
I’d hunt every fucking one of them.
She hesitated, blinking as she tried to dip her gaze.
“You weren’t supposed to see me this way. No one was. I’m so sick of it, Silas. I’m so sick of being pathetic and weak.”
“There isn’t a single thing weak about you, baby. Not one.”
I brushed my thumbs across the hollows of her eyes. “You just had a deviant dragging you out the door with a knife pressed to your throat. You are one of the strongest people I know. This force that forced its way right into my life. Shaking up everything that I thought I knew and making me see something else.”
I was worried right then that she might be the only one who could see me.
“I’m going to take you back to the house,” I finally forced out, peeling myself from her gravity, though I still couldn’t seem to let go of her face.
Needing the connection.
To feel the life beat of her under my palms.
Shaking her head, she swiped away some of the moisture from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“I need to work.”
“Not happening. You need to rest.”
And I needed to get far the hell away from her.
Clear my fucking head.
Put about three states between us because the only thing I wanted to do was dive back in.
That need was almost as excruciating as the thirst to spill the blood of the wicked.
And spilling blood seemed like a really good plan right about then.
Brinley peered up at me.
Face tear-stained and this bright hope shining through the torment that she’d suffered.
Girl nothing but light.
That connection I felt to her spun and churned and worked itself into something different than it’d been.
My soul shifting to understanding.
“Please, don’t fight me on this,” I murmured. “Let me take you back to the house so you can wash that scum off your body. Can’t fucking handle that he had his hands on you.”
If I thought I’d felt protective of her before? That need had bloomed into something desperate and complete.
Like maybe it was the one fucking reason I’d been born.
To be there.
Right then.
To set her free.
Brinley sniffled. “Okay. Getting out of these clothes is probably a decent idea. I’m kind of a mess.”
Was she really agreeing that easily? I wondered how messed up it was that I wanted her to fight me.
“I kinda like the mess you are.” I knew with the way my smile went soft that I was completely fucked.
She shook her head. Sadness filling the motion.
No doubt, she was aware that she and I were teetering on a very precarious cliff.
Getting attached in a way that we couldn’t.
And fuck me. I wanted to keep her.
Claim her.
Put a property patch on her back and make her mine.
My mother’s face flashed through my mind.
My guts toiled.
Hatred burned and guilt constricted.
I couldn’t do that.
My life was destruction, and I refused to cause her harm the way I did with everything that I touched.
Refused to subject her to a life of heartache.
To pain and suffering and horror.
I made a silent promise right then that I would somehow find a way to shield her from it.
From her brother.
From the old wounds that held her hostage.
Most of all, from me.
TWENTY-EIGHT
SILAS
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
Sweat dripped down Silas’s spine as he pushed the shopping cart across the parking lot of Crimson Creek Market & Deli. The elderly lady hobbled slowly at his side, and he forced himself into keeping her pace.
He angled the cart up to the trunk of her car and loaded her groceries in. She patted his arm as she placed a few coins into his palm, her wrinkled face tripping up in a genuine smile. “Here you go, young man. I sure appreciate you helping me out.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he mumbled, trying not to eye how much she was giving him because he didn’t want to be like that, but it was really difficult to stop himself.