Page 25 of Splitting Secrets
“Your eyes,” he muses, and all his amusement drops from his face at his new discovery. “They’re red.”
I try to jerk my chin away, but he slips his palm from my throat to my chin, forcing me to look at him. “No, they aren’t,” I insist, then close them like the child I am.
There have only been a few instances that my eyes have morphed from their odd violet hue into near-crimson. The first was after days of crying over my parent’s deaths, and Aunt Divina was the one to realize it.
She looked at me with a similar expression that Raze has—a mix between horror and amazement.
Then, she told me to never let it happen again. She even made me promise, which I thought was insanely out of character for her.
Of course, I can’t control it. But I knew better than to let anyone else see the weird trait after Aunt Divina acted like it would have me brought into a science lab and studied.
“Let me see,” he insists, fully sobered. When I keep my eyes downward, hiding them behind my lashes, he releases my hand and gives my shoulder a shake. “Now.”
Anger has me lifting my gaze back to his and my nose lifting in another snarl. “I’m not your fucking rag doll to throw around.”
My words fall on deaf ears since he’s clearly too enamored with the color of my irises to care what I have to say about how he’s treating me.
“They’re going to try to destroy you,” he mutters, hardly moving his lips. As the weight of the moment finally weighs on him, he removes his hand from my jaw and takes a full step backward. “I won’t let them,”he finishes the thought inside my head.
We stay like that for a weighted moment, staring into each other’s eyes while I process his promise. Why is he playing two polarizing personalities right now?
The realization of what he said before dawns on me—that they’ll have an Aeternum come in here and replay what was said.
I take the opportunity to land one last jab at Divina, bringing us back on topic before the ice in my heart thaws too much. “I didn’t steal anything. Poppy hated the Carmichaels. She hated her mother.”
Raze’s brows lift into his hairline and he nods, quickly catching onto the redirection.
“I don’t doubt that. What I can’t figure out...” he goes on in that fictitious, cocky tone. “Is whether you knew that the Syndicate existed before you came here, or if all of this was some stupid, happy coincidence?”
My brows pull together in a scowl. “What would be happy about that?”
Someone knocks on the door and both our gazes snap to the source. I straighten, remembering what those two assholes tried to do on their way here. For a split second, I have the urge to reach for him. To beg him not to let them touch me again.
But we have to keep up appearances. He can’t jump in to protect me. And I don’t think I’m any safer in here with him, anyway. This is all a game to disengage me.
“What?” Raze bites out to the intruders.
The voice on the other side is muffled. “... Just got the call to return.”
My eyes ping back over to Raze, who is pinching the bridge of his nose, swearing under his breath.
“Give me a minute,” he calls toward the door, then looks back toward me.Everything about his demeanor is calm and relaxed, but I can feel the frenzy of emotions bubbling beneath the surface. They’re strong enough to have my own heart kicking up in rhythm.
How the hell is he so good at hiding them?
“Why is that a happy accident?” he repeats my question in a cool tone. He rounds my chair in a leisurely circle, pacing to buy himself time as his voice fills my mind in a rush.
“Find the key and get yourself out. Don’t go through the tunnels—they don’t lead anywhere good. Sneak back up into the ballroom and slip out of the castle. Head northeast, into the woods. There’s a cabin set back. Go there and wait for me.”
My eyes ping around his face, scanning his features for any sign that all of this is a trap. Is he really offering me a way out?
Can I trust it if he is?
“Yes. I don’t get it,” I reply to his question when I realize too much time has passed.
“Because now that we’ve been made aware of the final Landry legacy, we can eliminate you and eradicate the problem altogether.”
“Someone will catch us,”I think.“What happens when they catch me creeping out of the dungeons? They’ll kill me on the spot.”
