The normal green in his eyes glowed red. I should have been terrified by the sheer hatred they contained.
But I guess I was wholly distracted by the way it seemed muddled by fear.
By fierce loyalty.
A secreted part of him that I couldn’t discern.
Silas seemed to war.
Hesitating as he hovered high, his body pitching back and forth with the ruthless energy he radiated.
“There are monsters who roam this world, Brinley. People who are so wicked, who have no good in them, that I can’t consider them human. And it’s my job to protect the vulnerable from them.”
No doubt, he was talking about Elena.
The rest of his family.
His club.
Maybe even me.
But I was sure there was something about the statement that went so much deeper than that. Sure that he was leaving out something extraordinarily significant.
A pivotal piece of him that throbbed and begged from the shadows.
My heart jackhammered at my ribs.
So fast and quick it seemed to gather up the oxygen in the air and swirl it into a vortex.
A vortex that threatened to suck us both down into an endless pit.
Because I thought I could see it.
Silas’s own confusion. Both of us in disbelief at whatever this feeling was that whipped through the room.
Or maybe it was a normal encounter for the Crimson Crows’s president.
A nightly occurrence where he ended up perched over unassuming women laid out in his bed, and I was the only one here who felt like a hurricane was twenty seconds from hitting land.
Except, I was pretty sure I could hear his heart hammering, too.
Heat blistering from his flesh and flickering over mine like a fiery caress.
His reservations were so distinct I could taste them coating my lips.
One more thing about this man that could get me drunk if I wasn’t careful.
But I wasn’t feeling so careful right then.
This was straight recklessness.
Like maybe I was taking my own risk by not shoving him off.
Silas Mercer was the last man I should want.
But God, there was something about him that drew me in. Like maybe he was inviting me to crawl through his fractures and cracks.
The most terrifying part was I thought maybe he could crawl through mine.
