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)
She hadn’t divulged much, but I could feel the magnitude of it.
The way it’d shaped her.
Scarred her.
Tormented her mind.
I wanted to demand more information. Jump out of this bed and drive straight to Dereck and force the little prick to give me their names.
Couldn’t believe he’d get himself tangled with another monster after that.
And it was clear right then that Brinley was too good. Too giving. Too right.
I wanted to protect and avenge every part of that.
I gazed up at her stunning face.
I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling.
How to handle it.
This was so far beyond what I was equipped for it wasn’t funny.
I was the destroyer, and the only thing I wanted to do was resurrect what she’d lost.
Well, and do a little destroying, too.
Guilt crept into my throat. “Hate the way I treated you when you came here. Threatening you. Trying to make you afraid.”
Every word cracked.
“Every one of my men were commanded not to touch you. I want you to know that wouldn’t have happened here.”
Even though I was the bastard who implied it. Attempting to bend her to my will to keep her safe.
But not all good intentions are right.
She huffed a breath, glanced away before looking back at me. “It’s weird. I was terrified. Terrified of coming here. Of Dereck involving me in something I didn’t understand. In something that would put me in danger again.”
She chewed at her bottom lip, contemplating as those eyes moved over my face. “But I don’t think I was ever actually afraid of you. Just of the reaction I had to you. And I think this afternoon I wasn’t flinching because I was scared of you touching me, but because I wasn’t. Because I wanted you.”
“It’s safe to say I was a little freaked out by the reaction I had to you, too.”
She paused, her mind rolling before it came to a standstill.
Nerves rattled her through before she finally whispered, “Can you tell me what’s really going on with my brother?”
Dread thrummed, a cold slick that slipped down my spine.
Fuck. It was getting harder and harder to keep secrets from her.
Who I was and what I was involved in.
But this secret was for her. Because I fucking cared and I wanted her to make it through this unblemished, though today had proven that was a failing goal.
“Can’t let you go there, Brinley, but I can tell you that he brought you here because he does care about you. Because he cares about your safety and trusted me to protect you until we put this to an end.”
Was that bullshit? Was he only doing it out of self-preservation? And was I only saying it to erase some of the hurt etched on her stunning face?
But when I’d had my gun stuffed down his throat, it’d been her name he was garbling. Was it his heart or was he low enough to use her against me?
After what I learned tonight? I was thinking he might be the biggest piece of scum that existed.
Right up there with my father.
“Put what to an end?” she demanded.
I warred before I said, “The bad guys he got himself mixed up in. That’s as much as I can tell you.”
Fear suddenly clawed its way through her expression, and she swallowed hard. “Can you just tell me one thing? Is it the same people who had Elena?”
Malevolence ripped through my body. “Yes.”
Despair wrenched through her, the confirmation stabbing through her like a rusted blade.
Like she was sinking into the awareness that Dereck likely hadn’t changed.
“I guess I see what’s riding on this,” she muttered through grieved disbelief.
But she couldn’t.
She had no idea what we were really undertaking, and there was no way I could guide her into those places, even though I was somehow tempted to do it.
Drag her down into my darkness.
Invite her in.
Keep her.
I slipped both hands to her neck.
Hovered. Wavered. Wanted.
So close to giving in.
The wail coming from the other room stopped me in my tracks.
“No! No! No!” Little cries echoed, then Kai was begging, “Siwas!”
Heart fisting, I moved Brinley off me and was on my feet.
THIRTY-SEVEN
BRINLEY
Kai’s cries echoing from the other room nearly broke me in two, and I shot upright, head spinning as I was dragged from whatever the fever was that had been blistering between me and Silas and to Kai’s reality.
Soul wrenched when I felt the terror radiating from his room.
I didn’t think that part of me could break any farther as I watched Silas blaze out the door, the cries breaking off a moment later.
Silas’s soft voice echoed, then came closer as he returned to the doorway of his room.
Kai was in the security of his arms. The tiny baby tucked close, his head burrowed up under his chin. As close to him as he could get because he knew he was safe there.