Page 19 of Falcon's Prey

Silas was the only person who gave a fuck about me. My dad’s room felt cold; he barely even lived here. I went to the back of his closet and found the velvet box, which he used to keep my mother’s things. I dug through her stuff, trying to find a connection to the mother I never knew. She was beautiful. I couldn’t deny that. Black hair, golden skin, and the darkest brown eyes, they almost looked black. I looked a bit like her except a shade lighter. I pulled all the stuff out when I found a diamond choker with intricate designs on the back rather than the front. Maybe it was a way to say, “Fuck you, Dad,” or maybe I just wanted something of my mother’s.

Silas was on the couch, drinking some scotch on the rocks. He had celebrated his twenty-third birthday a few months back, and I was sure he had better things to do with his time than spend it with me.

“He’s not coming, is he?” I asked him.

Silas turned his attention from the television toward me. He was handsome. I was sure he had a girl or two waiting at home for him. He was tall, lean, with hollowed cheekbones that made him look refined. Black hair, fair skin, and honey eyes that lacked warmth.

“I’m not leaving you alone on your birthday.”

He stood up, enveloping me in a tight hug. My skin prickled when his arm snaked around my waist a little lower than I was comfortable with.

“Happy Birthday, Ember,” he whispered against my ear.

With my hand in his, he led me up to the rooftop of our building. There were fairy lights all over, with a picnic set up and a fancy spread all around.

“Love you, Ember.” He kissed my cheek.

My heart thumped like a wild beast inside the confines of my ribs. I could taste the wrongness of it all in the air, breath in the vile, and I didn’t care. All my life, I had to share my life with the spotlight, my father to his work, and my mother to death. Silas was the one person who loved me, and I was holding on to that love like a crutch.

“What are you doing?” I said as soon as we both were sitting on the blankets. I was many things, but stupid was not one of them.

“I love you, Ember,” Silas said, his hand coming to my nape.

“I do too,” I said because that’s what you said to family.

Silas came closer, rising to his knees. “You’re not my blood, Ember, and you’re not my family—”

Hearing him say that hurt. It cracked pieces of my soul enough to make me angry, and with my anger came selfishness. I glared at Silas, ready to tell him he was nobody. A poor little orphan boy who got taken in to our dynasty. Before I could say more, Silas kissed me. His lips were cold and brutal. He kissed me with hunger and dominance.

“But youaremine.”

My lips trembled. It should have been intrusive, it should have felt wrong, but all I felt was the warmth I’d been denied all my life.

“I love you, Ember.”

He kissed me again, and I let him. I basked in the sin of his love. In the dark, I let him do to me things I might not have done in the light. I wasn’t a virgin, far from it, but I let Silas have my innocence—and he did.

He did me sweet, with peppered kisses on my skin.

On my knees, telling me it was always going to be him and me.

Licked the wrongness of my release while he smiled at me.

We fucked, him and me, and all I could think was finally, someone loved me.

My dick wasrock fucking hard.

I couldn’t remember a time where I’d lost control of my body like I did last night. I was used to keeping all my feelings in check; it came with the job. I’d learned to anticipate people’s moves before they even knew it themselves.

All that didn’t matter with Ember. Not since I’d started to develop some sort of sick obsession with her. When I watched her, I thought she was going to be one thing, but the reality of her had a stench. She reeked of desperation and loneliness, submerged in darkness and covered in selfishness.

Ember Remington was beauty wrapped in sadness and sealed with hatred. Yet it was all the ugly in her that called to me. Something so pretty and refined was one breath away from shattering.

Now that was something I wouldn’t mind seeing. I liked seeing people when they got to their breaking point—the delirious line between life, death, and fantasy.

I reached for my phone and checked the cameras. There was no sign of Ember. She must have still been sleeping. The first thing I did was hit the gym and work out, then shower.

When I came out, I noticed that Ember still had yet to leave her room. It wasn’t that I was worried, but if she’d overdosed on my watch, well, shit would get hard to explain to her daddy.

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