Page 177 of Savage Hearts

If I found too much comfort in my gilded cage, I might not want to fly away anymore.

And that was a dangerous path to go down.

But I realized my defenses had been down.

They were down further with the brothers than they ever had been with my dad, and that made no sense to me. The brothers were definitely the bigger monsters compared to my dad.

I should have been scared of them—terrified.

But I wasn’t, and that made me scared for a completely different reason.

I sighed and sat on the windowsill, staring out at the huge property before me.

It was worlds away from the scenery I grew up watching at the clubhouse.

A more beautiful kind of hell.

The sky darkened, and the garden lit up with a warm, golden outdoor light, making the place look even more ethereal.

I didn’t know how long I sat there, but my butt started to fall asleep when the doorknob turned.

I tensed, half expecting it to be Silas, and I wasn’t sure if my defense was strong enough to go against him right now, but to my surprise, it wasn’t Silas but Killian.

I startled and stood, not wanting to be sitting down when I faced him.

My cheeks flamed as our last interaction came to my mind.

Killian didn’t seem to be feeling anything as he stared at me, though there was a sort of tension in his shoulders.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot as the silence stretched between us.

I wished he would speak.

“Is there something you want?” I asked, losing the game by speaking first.

He crossed his arms over his massive chest.

If he was trying to intimidate me… well, it was fucking working.

I mirrored his action, trying to appear blasé, but the way his eyes scanned me from head to toe, I wasn’t sure if I pulled it off.

He took a step closer to me. I nervously swallowed, trying to get rid of the feeling that there was something lodged in my throat.

His eyes honed on that.

Like his brothers, he was damn perceptive.

“Say something,” I blurted out, unable to take the silence anymore.

He didn’t heed my command.

He took another step.

And another, and another, until he was standing directly in front of me. I tilted my head back until I was looking up at him.

Without saying a word, he reached down and lifted me up in his arms.

My heart rate sped up, but I managed not to make a sound. I instinctively wrapped my hands around his neck as he walked out of the room.

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