Page 13 of Buried Souls
“What is this?” My voice is a strained whisper. My heart, a frightened bird in a cage.
The storm outside no longer seems to be the thing that I should be afraid of.
Rattling the handle that refuses to budge, I spin around to the male sitting a few feet away, still observing me. Still soaking in every one of my reactions.
“Unlock the door,” I demand. “I wish to leave.”
“I’m afraid that’s no longer possible,” he says at last, his voice low—velvet soaked in smoke.
“That’s absurd. Why ever not?”
Lightening cracks.
“You’ve found something you shouldn’t have.”
I part my lips to answer, but find no words.
Niko’s smile deepens.
The silence that follows his ominous declaration is heavier than the storm raging outside. It presses in, thick and intimate, broken only by the beating of the rain against the glass and the slow echo of my breath.
Grinning wide, he stands, straightening to his full intimidating height. My throat goes dry as his menacing form approaches me. I step back, instinct prickling my skin. Yet I can’t stop looking at him. He’s massive, an absolute mountain of a man as he towers over me, but there’s also a terrible grace to theway he moves. Like a predator that hasn’t fed in a long time and has finally found his next meal.
He comes to a stop before me, so close, but not close enough. Not touching me, no, but near enough that I can feel the chill radiating from him like an unseen aura, as though he carries the cold of the grave beneath the fine stitching of his shirt.
“There is only one way you’ll ever be leaving this place.” My back hits the wooden panel as his hands land beside my head, caging me in. “By submitting tome.”
A strange heat flushes beneath my skin, sudden and unwelcome. I turn away, but a low snarl has my head snapping back. His hand lifts—not to touch, not quite—but close enough that I can feel the air shift near my cheek. His fingers ghost the space between us, tracing the line of my face without contact, as though I’m something sacred. Or something cursed.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I echo his earlier words back to him.
“No,” he agrees, fervid gaze locked on my mouth. “But you are.” He leans in closer, and I can feel the cold exhale of his breath. The house seems to lean in with him, as if the very walls are watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “I know you want to run.” My breath catches. “But you also want to stay.”
How can he possibly know that?
The words hit me somewhere low, somewhere dangerous. I swallow, holding my breath. A tremor runs through me. Not from the cold, no. From the awful, exquisite thrill of being seen. Reallyseen.
I observe him, heart pounding wildly as I do so. He radiates danger, not in the obvious way of monsters or men with knives,but in the way fire does when it dances too close to dry wood. Beautiful. Hypnotic. Inevitable.
Every instinct tells me to run. Yet no part of me moves.
His presence fills the room like smoke. I breathe it in before realizing it has no scent, no source—only weight. Only heat. And somewhere inside me, something responds. Not just desire. Not just lust.
Recognition.
Like I have known him before—somewhere in dreams, in my darkest fantasies, or in the hush of night when I felt most alone. That strange familiarity both comforts me and terrifies me.
He is a stranger.
An absolute force of nature contained within one man.
I should fear him. And Ido. But my fear is threaded with something I don’t understand: longing. The kind that doesn’t ask permission. The kind that dares to reach out and touch the flame, just to see if it will burn the same way twice.
