Page 21 of Her Soul to Own

A sound, soft but intentional. Like someone pressing themselves into the earth just loud enough to be heard.

I go stiff. I know that step. I’d know that controlled, predatory rhythm anywhere now.

He’s here. I lean out the side window and peer down through the leaves.

Silas Creed.

The bastard stands at the base of the tree like a ghost summoned by regret. One hand rests on the ladder, his other casually tucked into the pocket of those black tactical pants he always wears. His face is almost a blur, lit by morning gold, half in shadow. His eyes are the same steel-blue. They’re distant and quiet, like storm water pooling in a sinkhole.

My heart does something traitorous. I’m not scared. I’m just aware of his daunting size and appearance. His… everything.

“Jesus,” I mutter, wiping the last tear from under my eye with the heel of my palm. “Do you even sleep?”

No answer. Of course not.

He just stares up at me like he’s carved from the same stone as the estate’s statues. Still. Grounded. Watching. Like he belongs to the mist curling through the trees.

I lean against the window frame, letting my shirt slip a little, because fuck it. I’m tired, and I’m petty.

“You don’t speak unless you’re giving orders, is that it?” I ask, my voice sharp and sarcastic. “Must be exhausting. All that alpha energy with nowhere to go.”

Still nothing.

I shift. My shirt rides up, exposing my stomach to the cold. But I don’t bother covering it up.This man doesn’t seem to care. His eyes don’t even move.

“You’re not my superior, Creed. You don’t intimidate me.”

That one lands. I see it, barely, a movement in his neck. A twitch. It’s subtle, but it’s there.

“God, you’re like a robot,” I snap. “Do you even bleed?”

And then, finally, he speaks.

“Yes,” he answers.

That’s it. One syllable. But it hits like a hammer because it’s the first one he’s given me without a command stitched into it. No lecture. No threat. Just truth, dropped like a coin at my feet.

I blink. The sarcasm dries on my tongue.

“Well,” I mutter, clearing my throat. “I’m not throwing a rope down, but the ladder’s there.”

His fingers curl around the rungs. He climbs the same way he does everything—purposeful, silent, and controlled. It’s like watching a shadow scale a wall. His body moves with terrifying grace, each step revealing the way his muscles coil beneath that black T-shirt, stretching across his back, his arms, his… Jesus.

I need to get laid.

I slide over slightly, pressing my back to the wall.What is he even doing here?He doesn’t sit close. Just enough to be present and enough to shatter the peace I’d carved for myself.

We don’t talk.

The wind rustles through the leaves. The tree creaks, like it remembers us both. The journal lies between us, a paper corpse that neither of us wants to claim.

I wrap my arms around my knees, my eyes focused on a nail rusted deep into the floorboard.

“I used to pretend this place was a spaceship,” I say, my voice barely above the breeze. “Like I could launch off into some other world and escape all the screaming and glass and fake smiles.”

He doesn’t answer. He just sits and listens. And somehow, that’s worse.

“Do you ever regret your choices?” I ask suddenly, turning to him, my heart racing like I’m twelve again and trying to get a reaction out of a boy who won’t look up from his goddamn notebook.