I sink back onto the bed, wrapping my arms around myself.
This trip was supposed to be simple. Attend a gala, play the part, go home. Instead, I’m discovering parts of Darius that make me question everything I feel for him.
Because I do feel things. That’s the problem.
I’m falling for someone who might have a darkness in him I can’t accept.
I must have fallenasleep because I wake to the sound of the hotel room door opening. I feel disoriented and groggy. The room is darker now, the Florida sunshine replaced by the warm glow of evening lights filtering through the windows.
Darius steps into our suite, shutting the door quietly behind him. He pauses when he sees me stirring on the bed.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says.
I sit up, tucking my hair behind my ears. “It’s fine.”
He watches me for a moment, studying my face. Then, he moves toward me, his footsteps silent on the plush carpet.
I stand, needing space, but he’s faster. He circles my waist from behind, pulling me back against his chest. Warmth seeps through my clothes, and I hate how my body responds even as my mind rebels.
“Have you eaten?”
“No,” I reply.
“Do you want to have dinner with me?”
I try to pull away from him. “I’m not very hungry. You can go without me.”
He doesn’t release me. “Are you upset with me?” Low against my ear.
My throat tightens. “Why would I be upset?”
“Because of what I said about the hybrids.”
I go still before muttering, “You can think what you like, Darius. But I don’t have to agree with you.”
His arms tighten around me, not painfully, but enough that I can’t escape. “Anyone else can be angry with me, Violet.” Breath stirs my hair. “But not you.”
“Why not?”
“It makesme anxious.”
My heart flutters traitorously. I squeeze my eyes shut, hating myself for feeling this way. Hating how his words affect me.
Silence, and then his voice drops, becomes gentler. “When the massacre happened, the shifters who were slaughtered were innocent.” A pause. “My father brought me to see the site.”
I swallow.
“I was a teenager,” he continues. “He made me walk through it. Made me sift through the bodies.” His arms slide up and tighten just above my chest now, almost as if he’s holding himself together. “The faces of every person I saw are burned into my memory. It was senseless violence. My father had sent soldiers to that area for a negotiation of some sort, and none of them survived, either. Till you walk through that kind of carnage, you won’t understand, Violet.”
My throat constricts. Of course he would feel that way after witnessing something so horrific. After carrying those images for years.
But still…
“You don’t know what hybrids are capable of,” he says quietly.
The words settle heavily in my chest. I think about how it feels to be looked at with disgust. To be unwanted. What must it be like to be hunted just for existing?
“What if you found one,” I ask slowly, “and realized they weren’t violent? Would you still kill them?”
