Page 194 of Mama Si's Paradise

My eyes closed and I begged my heart to stop beating so furiously. I knew they were talking about me. I knew exactly what they were saying—it was crystal clear. And I’d rather jump out the window from the top floor of the tower first, but?—

“So, let me get this straight,” Grey said after a long moment of loaded silence, the tension so thick in the hallway I could touch it. “You’re all coming at me with the noble excuse ofsaving the Islesbecause you want to fuck Fall, even though the law is perfectly clear on the matter. Is that it?”

“Grey,” Romin warned. My heart did a fucking flip.

“And you expect me to…what, exactly?” Grey continued,his voice calm, but so different from when he spoke tomecalmly.

Thiscalmhid a fucking storm underneath.Thiscalmwas a goddamn warning.

“You expect me to just sayyes? You expect me to smile and nod and welcome you, my brothers, into the bed ofmywoman?” With every word he spoke, his voice became so much louder, so much more menacing, that I was tempted to be afraid, too.

None of the others said a single thing. I couldn’t see them very well, but they all had their heads down.

“She choseme,and you can’t stand it—which I understand. I’d have hated me, too, if I were in your shoes, brothers, but please get this through your heads: Fall is mine. She belongs to me. If any of you even looks at her wrong, Iwillkill you. Do you understand me?”

Oh, God…

“The Isles—” Romin started, but Grey wouldn’t let him speak.

“The Isles can rot in hell for all I care. I’ll set them all on fire myself,” Grey said, and I really,reallywanted to believe that he didn’t mean it, even though he sounded like he did.

“You know very well what happens if we don’t have an heir,” Romin said, his voice dangerously low now, too. My heart skipped a beat. If a fight broke out between them, what the fuck was I going to do?

“And you know very well what happens if you go behind my back,” said Grey, stepping forward, right in the middle of them all with his chin up, perfectly at ease.

He locked eyes with each one of them for a second, then said, “Touch her, brothers, and you will die.”

It was a simple statement, and he said like he believed it with his whole being. Just a fact.

You will die,he said, to his own brothers.

I had never prayed so hard in my life for this to be over, for them to walk away so I could go down there and smack Grey in the fucking head until he came to his senses and thought clearly again.

Was he absolutely nuts?! Those were his fucking brothers!

Nobody made a single sound for a long moment, and even my heart slowed down the beating, afraid to be heard.

Then Tristian opened his fucking mouth and said, “Her pussy must be really tight if you?—”

That’s all the words he managed to say before Grey moved.

He turned to a blur and I was only able to make him out because my eyesight had improved drastically since I came to the Woods. He was in front of Tristian before anybody blinked, one hand around the back of his neck, the other on his jaw, squeezing tightly.

“Grey!” Romin called, but they all took a step back, arms wide at their sides, ready to attack.

I stopped breathing altogether as I watched Tristian hissing and trying to push Grey’s hands off his face but couldn’t.

Grey squeezed. The sound of bone breaking echoed in my head and Tristian fell to his knees. Grey didn’t let go of him, only kept squeezing and squeezing until blood spilled out of Tristian’s nose and mouth and ears. He slammed his fists on Grey’s face and chest and stomach, and he tried to get up again but couldn’t. His eyes were dark, his fangs extended, and he kept hissing like a damn snake, but Grey didn’t budge a single inch.

“Grey, let him go,” Romin said again, his tone a warning, but he didn’t intervene. He didn’t touch Grey, pull him back and get in between him and Tristian as he should have been doing. They all just watched and prepared to defend themselves.

“I’m not done breaking his skull yet,” Grey said, his voice slightly strained, and another popping sound reached my ears, shaking me to my core. He wasreallygoing to break his brother’s skull. Because ofme.

I moved before I knew it.

“Grey, step—” Romin started again.

“Stop!” I called at the top of my voice, stopping halfway to them in the middle of the hallway.

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