Page 29 of Shattered Souls
I roll my lips between my teeth, holding back my laughter as Grayson places a hand at the base of my spine and escorts me outside.
He walks beside me across the parking lot, and my shoulders begin to shake as we approach his car. He glances at me from thecorner of his eyes, his gaze narrowing; however, there’s a rare, mischievous spark illuminating his dark orbs. “What, pray tell, has you so amused?”
Lips still between my teeth, they slip free as I grin. “Oh, I don’t know,sweetie.”
His eyes flare, mirth dancing in their dark depths. “You little—” He dives for me, and I squeal, jumping backward and running around to the car’s passenger side.
Except he follows, barricading me against the door with his long arms and solid body.
“Think you can tease me like that without punishment, Tempest?” He breathes into my ear before nipping the lobe with his teeth and sending shivers cascading down my spine.
“You like my teasing…sweetie.”
A groan, followed by the bite of teeth on flesh, sends a tug straight to my core. “God help me, I do,” he whispers against my skin as he trails his lips closer to the crook of my neck. “I like your teasing. I like your fight. I like it when you glare at me like you’re envisioning stabbing me.”
One hand leaves the car to glide down my side before resting on my hip. “I like that you’re soft yet fierce. Caring yet cutting. I like your tears and the sound of your laugh. That when I challenge you, you challenge me right back.”
He pulls back just enough for our eyes to collide. “But what I love the most about you, Tempest, is your pain.” My brows dip in confusion. “It is the pain you have endured that makes the fact youcantease inspiring, that makes your fight so much more fearsome. Makes your ability to care so precious, your tears more potent, and your laugh fuckingmusical.”
Leaning in, he presses his forehead against mine, our breaths tangling in the scant space between our lips. “That pain that should have destroyed you, yet you’re still standing, still breathing. That strength with the courage—the resilience andsheer determination it must have taken… It’s a flame teasing me closer when I’m lost in the dark and need a way out.”
“Grayson.” His name is barely a breath between us. Like a tug on a boat, his body leans into mine, a soul-deep sigh slipping from between his lips before he wrenches himself away.
“Don’t say anything.” He looks down at me with his usual stoic expression, except it’s lacking some of its typical hardness. There’s a rare softness around his eyes, a slight hitch to his lip. “Just do as you’re told for once and get in the car.”
Not moving, I stare up at him, searching. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He hesitates before shaking his head. “No.”
“Okay,” I readily agree. “I may not understand what pain you’ve endured, Grayson, but like you just pointed out, I do understand pain, and I know what it is to be forced to grow up too fast.” I give him a small smile and a shrug of my shoulder. “In case you ever feel like talking.”
Giving him my back, I slide into the car, feeling the intensity of his gaze boring into me before he strides around the front of the vehicle.
As he gets in, his phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out, frowning at the screen.
“What is it?” I ask, suddenly on alert.
He tilts the screen so I can see the text from Royce.
Get to The Depot now. We have a lead.
9
ROYCE
Leaning over the back of the desk chair in Xander’s too-small office, I squint at the grainy picture on the screen.
“Dude, I swear, if your putrid breath hits my cheek one more time…” Dax growls. He raced back here after his fight in New York when Blue notified him of this possible lead.
“Fuck off.” I smack the back of his head, but not hard enough to do any real damage—he is helping us, after all. “I popped a breath mint.” Ignoring him, I lean in closer to the screen once more, scanning every pixel of the photo.
A photo that shows a brown-haired—is that a hint of red?—little girl. Her face is down, her hair falling forward, preventing us from getting a half-decent look. She’s dressed in a worn, blue-green princess dress that looks a size too big for her, and beneath the picture is the nameAriel.
Definitely not her name. Still… my nose presses closer to the laptop screen. That is, without a doubt, a hint of red, right?
“I’m serious, man. I can’t work if you’re blocking my view.” Dax shoves at my shoulder, and I grunt a half-hearted apology as I reluctantly lean back.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I scan the dozen other photos alongsideAriel’s. All are little girls dressed up andrenamed as Disney princesses. In each one, the dresses are a little torn or tattered, the girls are barefoot, and most aren’t looking at the camera. The ones who are… they are the photos that scare me the most. While the images are grainy, making it impossible to discern individual features, there is no mistaking the fear in those kids’ eyes—the red noses from endless tears.
