Page 22 of Dead By Dusk

She stops herself for a moment and meets my eyes, the soft glow of the fire revealing the soft sheen that coats them. “I just need her to be okay.”

After she says that, she turns slightly toward the other two men. “Do you trust them?” she asks, taking me by surprise. I regard her with wary and caution, my eyes narrowing and handsclenching, unintentionally gripping Silenes body much harder than I meant to..

“Why would I not?” She looks around again, this time slower, before she leans into me so close that I can feel when the next words leave her as if they were reaching out to tell me themselves.

“Silene left for a reason. A warning that she was given…”

I quickly look down at the woman lying in my lap before raising my head up to ask another question, but when I do, the tall woman has already stumbled closer to the fire we lit right before darkness consumed us. Nobody says a word as the crackling of flames fill the air. Not Nate as he remains focused on the tall woman’s every move. Not Adonis as he uses his own shirt to apply pressure on the wound to his face and neck, irritation written all over his expression. Not the woman who occasionally glances back at us but otherwise remains seemingly unaware of the brown eyes that follow every breath she takes.

Not me as I reach into my pocket and remove the note I’d found in the house. The note I’ve read over and over again as I try to remember why I wrote it, what it means, and how it got there. But for some reason those are the memories that evade me. For some reason, all the memories from how we got here remain just out of reach, and all that I see or hear is Silene. The sound of her voice. Her bright, mossy green eyes.

Green eyes that begin to move beneath her lids.

I pocket the paper and sit up, pushing back the loose strands of hair that had fallen out of the tie I’d made for her so her hair wouldn’t be in her face any longer than it already had been. When I’m done fixing her hair, my hands cradle her cheeks, wanting to be the first thing she sees and feels when she wakes.

When she finally opens her eyes, though, it’s not relief or happiness I see, but pure unadulterated rage that crosses her features. Even with only the soft glow of the fire lighting her face,I can almost see her every thought, but only one thing passes through my mind.

She’s okayis the chant that plays over and over in my head as short-lived relief washes over me. Very short-lived relief.

“Get. Your. Hands. Off. Me.” she grits out through clenched teeth. Her calm should not be mistaken as anything other than deathly. Lethal, even, as she removes my hands and puts distance between us while moving to sit up. I observe every flicker of her gaze and how it settles on the other woman longer than anyone else. I notice the way their eyes catch and the silent conversation that seems to pass between them before her shoulders slump forward in what could only be relief.

One asksHow are you?And the other silently answers withOkay. Safe.

I observe the way Silene’s hands trail over her body, taking count of every blade that is sheathed on her thighs before she slowly moves to a crouching position and turns her whole focus to me.

She’s watching me as one would watch an enemy, or worse…a stranger.

“Sile—” She holds up her hand, silencing anything else that I was hoping to say and looks back to the others. They are all watching us with rapt fascination.

“Why did you do it?” she asks me with a withering look, and I don’t know how to answer the question. Genuinely, I’ve never been more confused in my life. Considering our current situation, I feel as if that says a lot.

“Why did I do what?” I ask, but she just scoffs before leveling me with a glare that sends ice into my bloodstream. I’m stuck wondering what it is she could be talking about considering she’s been asleep the entire time we’ve been here together.

“Ronan, cut the shit. Why. Did. You. Do. It?” she demands, every word pronounced with a determined conviction. Slowly,she moves to stand, and I follow every single bend of her body that she created in the process. The curve of her spine, the bend of her elbows, her grimace at the rolling of her neck. There’s not a single thing she does that escapes my notice. There never will be. She catches me openly staring, and I just hold my hands up in surrender hoping that she doesn’t think of me as a threat.

Though, at least then she’s still thinking of me.

“Killer, I really don’t—” I attempt again, but she scolds me and I promptly shut my mouth as she speaks.

“Ronan, you have five seconds.” She slowly unsheathes a blade and points it at me. Nate takes this moment to rise to his feet in a panicked frenzy, but Silene whips her head in his direction, halting him when she aims the blade at him instead.

“Tsk tsk, Nathaniel, I don’t think you want to test my aim with this,” she says pointedly with a mocking undertone.

I see Carmen’s face fall as she says, “The answer is very well. If your life is something you value, you should listen to her.” The statement is quiet, but we all hear it well enough for him to take a few steps back.

“Very good. Ronan, since we were interrupted, I’ll give you five more seconds. Butonlyfive. Don’t make me put this blade through your pretty face. It would be quite a shame.” She smirks, but I don’t mistake that small feature for anything other than a warning she’s hopeful I won’t heed. And damn, do I want to see her smile enough to pretend that I don’t know just how violent my woman is.

“You think I’m pretty?” I ask, and she barks out a laugh before she’s glaring at me with narrowed eyes.

“Time’s up. Wrong answer.”

The next thing I know, she’s putting her blade away and walking toward me with a violent gleam in her eyes. I may not remember much of the events that landed us here, but I do remember how good she is in hand-to-hand combat. I doremember how she came to us as someone with mostly boxing experience, and a little martial arts training here and there. I remember training her, not because I was forced to, like she thought, but because I was entranced by her. I remember the long hours we spent on the mat so she could learn how to be more proficient and to read her opponents’ tells. I remember her abundance of hatred toward me and how I would fuel the fire inside her with a snark and underhanded comments.

She eventually surpassed me, but our training days never stopped. I never wanted them to. I don’t think that she did either.

I let her throw the first punch, wanting to watch what she went for to know just how fucked I was. She goes for a left hook. Immediately, I know that my odds of winning this fight are probably sitting somewhere in the negatives.

In other words, I’m completely and utterly fucked if I can’t convince her I’m innocent of whatever she has already found me guilty of.

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