This man bled for me, bled for these creatures, bled for his island. The more I learned about the darkness aroundthe storm, the more I saw the exquisite light hidden inside.
My fingers stroked over the fluff on the back of the baby unicorn. She settled into my lap, nestled her head on my knee. I waited, hoping Silas would continue to talk freely. About anything and everything. Maybe this was his safe space, as much as it was safe for the others, the animals.
“Tell me about Atlas,” I finally whispered.
Silas’s face was too pale, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t want to speak about his brother, or if something else was bothering him.
“He’s my half-brother,” Silas said. “We have the same father. Different mothers.”
“Is he also a Hunter?”
Silas shook his head. “The Hunter genes are said to be fickle, to only attach themselves to those who carry the darkness within. It can skip individual siblings, entire generations, and more. I was the lucky one who inherited it.”
“How do you find out you’ve got Hunter blood?”
“The first time you take a life.”
Silas met my gaze evenly as he shared this news, like he needed me to understand. Like he needed to bare all of himself before I got too attached. Little did he know, the more he shared, the more there was to love.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“No,” he said firmly. Then, softer, “Not yet.”
I nodded, stroked the purring baby in my lap.
“I’m the firstborn. Ten years older than Atlas. My father suspected I had the Hunter gene and was ashamed of it. Once my mother was out of the picture, he moved on, desperate for another son. Fortunately, he got his golden child.”
“Atlas,” I filled in.
“My father mated with an Olympian, and she gave him Atlas—a beautiful child. He was allowed within the doors of Olympus at birth. He was everything powerful and good and perfect.”
“Silas,” I said, desperate to touch him, but sensing he might recoil if I moved even a millimeter.
“It’s just a fact.” Silas spoke in a hard voice, like he’d worked this narrative into his head for so long and with such swift finality that he’d left no room for an alternative storyline.
No room formystoryline. The side of Silas that I could see, one that he couldn’t. My heart broke, and I clutched the small creature closer to me, cherishing the warmth, her soft, sleepy breaths, her tiny head resting so vulnerably on my lap.
“What else are you?” I asked. “Do you have another half in your genetics that’s not Hunter blood?”
Silas’s gaze landed on me. “Yes.”
“Will you tell me about it?” I asked. “You’re more than a Hunter, Silas. You are more than your darkest shadows. Look at this life you’ve saved.”
I nodded down at the completely still baby animal on my lap. She’d dozed off, completely comfortable around this man.
“You aregood, Silas,” I told him. “I’ve always known it.”
“You’re too kind.”
“I know you have killed people.” My breath came in gasps. This was dangerous territory. I could push him away with one wrong word. “Tell me you didn’t have a good reason for it.”
I could see a multitude of reasons flashing across his face. Worlds of hurt and regret, the wish that things would have been different, even though they just weren’t.
“That’s what I thought.” I rested a hand on his leg.
But something was wrong. I looked down, feeling a sticky warmth.
Silas’s face had grown paler still. I no longer believed it to be something to do with Atlas.
