Page 156 of Forged in the Fire
“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 thatforcedits 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 seeme.
“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.”
