“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 criesechoing 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.
I guess I somehow knew that’s where I was safe, too. That no matter how hard and battle-clad Silas was, he was a haven.
A haven for his men.
A haven for his family.
I had a hunch he was the only one who didn’t know it.
Kai’s cries shifted.
