Page 32 of Lessons In Grey

I walked up to her and crouched down in front of her, feelingthe rage boiling under my skin. I reached over and gently took her chin, lifting it until her beautiful green eyes found mine for only a second before they dropped to my chin.

Her throat bobbed.

She had been crying again, but I had assumed as much. What I wanted to see was her swollen nose and her pupils.

Her breathing was shaky, those long, beautiful dark lashes kissing her perfect skin. She had freckles. A light smattering of them across her cheeks. She had a couple of acne scars from years ago, her light pink blush doing nothing to hide the redness of her cheeks.

“Look at me,” I instructed gently.

As if she couldn’t help it, her eyes lifted back to mine.

I studied them carefully, moving my head slightly to change the light pouring in from the hall. They were reactive, the dark makeup now smudged around her eyes. Fuck, she was beautiful.

“No concussion,” I finally decided.

Another swallow.

“I won’t bother asking who did this, I doubt you’ll tell me, which is smart if you don’t like the idea of carrying another secret on those shoulders of yours.” I had my guesses, and usually those guesses were right. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about it. Not yet. Not if I was smart.

Her brows pulled together, the glassiness in her eyes causing my insides to twist in ways I had never experienced before. This was more than just my family getting hurt. It was more than protecting my brothers and sisters. This was Emily.

Emily, the divine, tragic, beautiful, whimsical woman with a tongue like a goddess, and the eyes to match. Fuck, I knew from day one that all she had to do was whisper a single word to me,‘please’, and I’d fall down at her feet, begging her to tell me what she wanted of me.

I’d fucking kiss her converse if she asked it of me. I’d lick them. God, I’d fuck them if she got off on it.

I shook my head. My mind was going to dark places, and I couldn’t let that happen right now.

I ran my hand over my face, that rage, so carefully controlled, beating under my skin.

When I had met my brothers over the years, I had wondered if Malachi and Beckett just had a knack for picking the most unstable of us all to adopt as their own or if they had just been that unlucky.

Lucky for Emily, I supposed, I was the most stable of the unstable. I wasn’t sure what that said about us all, but fuck it, who put that much thought into psychotic behavior anyway.

“Why are you so tense?”

My eyes lifted back to hers, only for hers to drop. It was the first thing she had said to me since last Friday. Fuck, I missed her voice. “Because I know how this goes,” I said carefully, trying to keep the rage out of my tone. “I’m going to tell you to leave, you’re going to say no, I’m going to argue, you’ll fight back. You’ll say that it’s fine, that it’s all under control or that you, for some ungodly reason, deserve it. I’ll say that if you let this go on, your stepbrother will kill you. You’ll say that he would never do that.”

I sucked in my lips, chewing on my bottom one just to keep the rage at bay, pulling her eyes up. She loved watching my lips, I knew that. Just as much as I loved watching hers. “You’ll tell me not to do anything,” I went on carefully, “not to step in, that you’ve got it handled, but you don’t. You do not have it handled in the slightest.

“However, you’ll believe that you do. I could go behind your back and kill him in his sleep, I’m guessing he’s the one who drinks in your home, but then you might not forgive me for a very long time, and I can’t have that because that will lead me down a very,verydark path. I didn’t lie when I said I wanted you. I didn’t lie when I said that you can’t escape me. We are inevitable, you and I, and anything that gets between that, well, I’ll have to do something about it, won’t I?”

Another swallow, her pupils growing.

Fuck. Don’t do that to me now, Snowflake.

“I do have it handled,” she said, her voice weak, thick with the blood clogged in her sinuses.

I laughed, and it sounded too much like Azrael to make me feel good about the situation. “See?” I shoved myself to a stand and turned away from her, trying to cool off, trying to control it, but I could feel it hot and heavy, burning in my soul.

“I don’t need your help,” she said again, unable to go any louder without her voice cracking. “You don’t even know me. We’re perfect strangers.”

I turned to her from across the hall and I took her in. Studied her. God, she was fucking beautiful. She looked so small sitting in that alcove, the trees from the windows above her changing color, the world gray. She put on so much makeup today to cover the evidence, yet I could still see the dark circles under her eyes.

She needed rest.

I couldn’t betray the near nonexistent trust that we had right now, so killing Jordan was out of the question, but what I could do was stand beside her and push her to leave.

I inhaled deeply, trying to calm my own racing heart, my fingers itching for my gun. I forced myself to relax as I walked back over and pulled off my jacket. “You still have 47 minutes of lunch,” I told her, folding the jacket up easily and placing it on the floor beside her. “Sleep. Nobody will hurt you here.”