Page 77 of Gray

“Because you’re not the relationship type,” he whispered.

“I thought I wasn’t.” I played with a strand of his hair. “Will you turn around so I can look at you?”

“Nope.” Gray hid his face in my inner arm. “It’s easier not to look at you.”

“Why?”

A warm tear fell on my bicep. “’Cause I’m scared.” His voice cracked on the words. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone, Mason, and I don’t wanna lose you. The more you learn about me, the more you’ll wanna run away.”

“I don’t run from anything.” I kissed the top of his shoulder. “Not from a fight. And especially not from you.”

“You say that now, but what if drinking blood isn’t the worst thing I do? What if I can do other things? Bad ones.”

I waited for him to say more, and when he didn’t, I gently turned him toward me. Crocodile tears glistened in his eyes. It was like a knife to the heart. Honestly, the knife would probably be less painful.

“I made you cry again.”

“Nuh-uh.” He hastily wiped at his tears. “I cry when I’m frustrated too. Not only when I’m sad.”

“Why are you frustrated?”

“Just ’cause.”

“That’s not an answer.” When he tried to look away, I turned his face back. “Gray. Talk to me.”

“Can we just have sex instead?” he asked, chin quivering. “We don’t gotta talk right now.”

“Yes, we do.” My sternum ached, as if wrapped in barbed wire and pulled tight. “No sex. No flying away from me. Tell me what’s going on in that sweet head of yours.”

“I’m not sweet, Mason,” he whispered. “That’s the problem. I wish I was the person you think I am. I wish I was innocent and sweet and good. But I’m not any of those things. And I’m terrified of you knowing the real me. You won’t like me as much once you do.”

The real him?

“You asked me once what my fighting specialty was. Remember? I told you Alastair’s is his intellect. Galen’s is his brute strength. Bellamy is the seducer.”

“You said you’d tell me yours if I stuck around long enough.”

Gray hopped out of bed and paced in front of the large window, the sky darkening behind him as the sun sank below the horizon. “Lazarus trained us to be his weapons. He beat us. Broke us down. I used to be sweet and kind, but he killed that part of me. And what he replaced it with?” Sad eyes met mine as he stopped pacing. “A killer.”

“You were at war.” I approached him at the window. “Killing is inevitable. Fuck knows I’ve killed people too.” Some I still had nightmares about, like the young boy whose face I’d seen as he’d died.

“You don’t understand.” Gray pushed against my chest, but there was no force behind it. He then pressed his face to my shirt. “He trained me to be an assassin, Mason. He told me a name, and I killed, no questions asked. I took out demon lords, commanders, and sometimes I took out their sons. After a few years, I became numb to it. Just like you said at the café that morning. Being numb is better than letting yourself feel. So I stopped feeling.”

An assassin. I didn’t think he was lying. It was just hard for me to imagine Gray with his adorable sleepiness and obsession with cute things being a cold-blooded killer.

“You were following orders. I’ve done things I’m not proud of too.” One question nagged at me. “What about Sloth? You have to nap every two hours. Sooner than that if you’re really active. So how did that work during your missions?”

Even if he had napped before going, some missions lasted hours. Days.

Gray sighed and gently pulled from my hold. He walked over to his bookshelf and picked up a manga, flipping through it. An illustration of a man kissing a bloody skull was on the cover.

“Avoiding my question again?”

“No.” He slid the manga back in place and released another sigh. “I’m just… thinking.”

“Dawdling.”

“Look.” Gray started pacing again. If he wasn’t careful, he’d burn through his energy and have to take another nap soon. “You know how our sins give us certain traits? Galen is super grumpy and lashes out. Raiden eats, like,allthe time. But we have other traits too. Ones that are…” He returned to the window and stared at the rocky cliffs in the distance. “More sinister.”