Page 104 of Poison Aches

My stomach drops.

Intense and acute pain swells up in my chest.

“Do you hear that? It’s still beating,” I hear above me, but his voice vibrates through his chest, and into me. “So if you think you and I will ever be done, then you’re betting on the wronggoodbye, Angel.”

I think I die right then.

A gasp escapes my lips. His words are both cold and ominous, giving me a bad feeling.

“I…I don’t know what you mean,” I croak.

“You’ve never been a really good actor so drop the confused acts,” he says simply but with such a coldness that I feel it square in my chest.

“I’m not…”

“Angel…” he starts but trails off, watching me with such brazen hostility mixed with something else as he leans in even closer. His eyes track down to my lips, staying there until I start feeling like he’s going to do something but instead when he looks back into my eyes, there’s a stillness in them that can’t be missed.

Shit.

“You and I will have plenty of time in the near future to discuss yourlittle feelings.” He says the last two words in such a condescending manner, as if just the very thought of my “feelings” is irrelevant and ridiculous to him. “After all, I madeyou a promise and you know me, Angel. I keep my promises, don’t I?”

A powerful, back-breaking kind of shudder goes through me so much so that I swear he felt it too.

“I know you do,” I murmur, a glimpse of the past flashing in my head.

To everyone else, Emmett Easton wears an impenetrable mask of civility and calmness.

He's gentle and not easily perturbed.

I’ve seen Noah try constantly to rile him up but it never works.

He stays indifferent, cold, as if the whole world is nothing but dust.

Once upon a time, I believed it, the mask he wore.

But the thing is, every now and then, whenever he showed me glimpses of the darkness and bleakness within that he kept tightly reined in, I’d look away and lie to myself.

Our group of friends really don’t know anything when it comes to the history between Emmett and me.

While they now know about the one life-saving incident, they don’t know about the blood oath Emmett and I made to each other.

Or how he once retaliated for a sin I never committed.

They might have an idea on how ruthless he is but to them, he’s the kind of guy that shakes things off of him. To them, he pretends like he’s not affected by anyone and anything and that he doesn’t hold grudges.

But the true god of Westbrook Blues is much more cold-blooded, cruel, and unforgiving than any of them.

And now, he’s just reminded me of that.

That first time at the hospital when I woke up with no memories, he showed me exactly what he can do and who hereally is, but I chose to drown in the emerald green of his deadly eyes.

I buried the truth deep within my fantasy of him, but I do know him.

I know him more than I bargained for.

“You do, huh?” he gruffly whispers. “And here I thought you had a shit memory.”

Everything in me screeches to a halt.

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