Page 195 of Mama Si's Paradise

They all turned to me—including Grey.

Fuck, he wasfurious.His eyes looked so dark they could have been black. He was fully clothed, and the tips of his fangs had just slipped down his upper lip. He looked like such a completely different person that, for a moment, I thought maybe I imagined the time I had spent with him. I thought maybe I’d gotten so delusional that I’d made it all up.

“Please, let him go,” I said anyway because, imagination or not, Grey was about to break Tristian’s fucking skull because of me, and I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. Iwouldn’t.

Grey had frozen in place, and so had the others, though I couldn’t look away from him even for a second. I took another step forward, shaking so badly I was surprised my legs still held me. Tristian’s blood continued to spill from his mouth and nose, trying in vain to remove Grey’s hands from his face….

“Don’t kill him, Grey. Please, let him go.”

My voice shook, too. My heart beat in my ears. Grey stood perfectly still, his eyes widening, some grey slipping into them again.Please,I said to him in my mind, as if I was sure he’d hear me.

Then he moved.

Twisting his hands to the sides fast, he broke Tristian’s neck and the sound of it filled the hallway. Tristian fell on the floor on his side, and my heart fell with him.

But Grey toldme, “He’ll live.”

He’d live. Tristian would live. He was not going to die today—not on my account, at least.

Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath.He’ll live, but I might just die of a goddamn heart attack.

Whimpers behind me, and I turned to see brides, five of them holding onto one another on the other side of the hallway just at the corner, watching. Crying.

“That’s crossing the line,” Romin said, taking a menacing step toward Grey.

Now I was scared shitless.

Was he going to attack Grey? Because he was stronger. That’s what the brides said—Romin was the strongest of all the brothers. What if he actually hurt Grey?

Oh, God…

“I agree, brother. He went way too far,” Grey said, still just as calm, waving his hand at Tristian’s body right there near his feet. “But don’t you worry—he won’t be talking for at least the next day. I’d say his lesson was learned.”

“You’re a fucking savage,” Emil told him.

“We do not kill our own,” Romin spit.

“Except he has already, hasn’t he?”

We all turned to Valentine. He’d been so perfectly silent until now that I was almost surprised to find him still there.

“He killed his own father.Ourfather,” Valentine continued, his voice bitter. Ice-cold.

My heart stood perfectly still.

Grey turned to him slowly, and I could no longer see his face. I wanted to call out his name so badly it hurt.Let’s just go back to my room. Let’s go back to bed. Let’s hide under the covers, just the two of us.

I wanted nothing more than to be where we were that morning.

“I did,” Grey said, his hands loose to the sides, waiting.

“That was different. He was challenged,” Romin said. “Rassin challenged him.”

He, at least, seemed a tiny bit calmer now.

Valentine smiled the way he used to do to me—mischievously, like he was a little snake hiding in the grass, waiting to jump at the first chance.

“Then I challenge him, too.”

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