Page 35 of Unmask (Crew of Elmwood Public #2)

Just like it was supposed to be, and if anyone came for her tonight…I’d make damn sure they never walked away from here.

The first rays of morning light filtered through the curtains, painting soft gold across the walls.

I hadn’t slept. Couldn’t. Not when every creak in the house had me ready to put my fist through someone’s face.

It would be dumb for someone to try to abduct her with a house full of notorious bad boys with reputations for revenge, but I refused to let my guard down.

The second I did was the moment when they would strike.

It was what I would do.

Kaylor stirred, legs tangled in the sheets, mumbling something under her breath. Her brows twitched, lips parting, dry and sleep swollen. Slowly, like she was surfacing from somewhere deep, her lashes fluttered, and her eyes cracked open.

She blinked at me, eyes still hazy and unfocused. The light caught the silver strands of her hair, fanning across her cheek, catching on the slope of her collarbone like sunlight had chosen her and her alone to land on.

“Kreed?” she rasped.

I sat forward, elbows on my knees. “Morning, little raven.”

Her gaze darted from me to the clothes I still wore, to the seat I hadn’t moved from all night, and then back again. Her brows pinched together. “Why are you in the chair?”

I gave a half shrug. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

“How very un-Kreed-like of you,” she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes. A soft flush crawled up her cheeks when she caught how close I still was.

I couldn’t help it. A crooked grin tugged at my mouth. “What? You expected me to curl up next to you and spoon?”

She glared at me through sleep-heavy lids. “I expected you to take over the bed like you own the place.”

“I do,” I said, deadpan.

She snorted into her pillow. “And creepy. Sitting there all night. Watching me sleep.”

Fucking adorable.

“Protective,” I corrected. “Big difference.” I leaned in, just enough to feel her breath against my skin. “Besides, you’re the one who kept whispering my name all night. Figured I better stick around in case you needed me.”

That got her.

Frowning, her lashes dipped low as she muttered, “You’re lying. Unless I was cursing your name. That would make more sense.”

I chuckled low, the sound rumbling from my chest. “You want me to tell you what else you said?”

She shot me a look. “Don’t push your luck.”

I grinned. “So you admit it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re insufferable.”

“Maybe,” I said, resting my chin in my hand, elbow on my knee. “But you’re stuck with me anyway.”

Her mouth opened, but the snark she usually fired off so easily stalled.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward.

It was taut, crackling like lightning waiting to strike.

Something raw lived in that moment. Something neither of us wanted to name, but reality shattered the calm like a brick through glass.

Her face changed. The softness drained out of her expression, replaced by a slow, soul-crushing dread. She blinked again, this time too fast, too hard. Her bottom lip trembled. “It…it wasn’t a nightmare? Kenny?”

I didn’t answer.

“She’s really gone.” Her voice broke. “Kenny’s gone.” Her fingers shook as she reached for the edge of the blanket, gripping it like it could hold her together. But it wouldn’t. Nothing would right now.

I slid my hand across the mattress, found hers, and laced our fingers. Her skin was cold. Mine was burning. “I’m going to find her,” I said quietly. “I swear it, Kaylor. I’m going to bring her home.”

Her eyes lifted to mine, glassy with unshed tears. “And if you can’t?”

I held her gaze, fierce and unflinching. “Then I make the bastards pay.”

“Maybe it would be easier if I just gave them what they wanted. She’s probably so scared. I could put an end to her nightmare, Kreed. I don’t know if I can wait and hope we find her.”

“You’re not going to them,” I said against her hair. The thought of her in the possession of someone so sick, someone who would sell one of their own to save their own skin… It made my chest burn with a protective instinct so fierce it nearly brought me to my knees.

“But she could die,” she whispered, her voice fracturing like glass. “If I don’t go?—”

“We’re going to find her,” I cut her off, my voice harder than I intended.

“What if we’re too late?” The question came out broken, raw terror bleeding through her words.

I pulled back just enough to look at her, to let her see the promise in my eyes, and kept our fingers tied together. “We won’t be. She has the Ravens and the Elite looking for her. I’d say her odds of being found are pretty fucking good, little raven.”

With big light-blue eyes, she looked at me, and I would have promised her anything in that moment, anything to banish that sorrowful expression on her features. “I’m scared.”

Something cold and familiar stirred in my chest. Something that had been sleeping in the dark corners of my soul since the last time I’d made the mistake of caring too much. The thing that turned me into exactly what people feared when they whispered my name in the shadows.

For her, I’d become someone I didn’t like very much, but what troubled me was whether, when this was over, she would look at me the same. Would she still want me? Would she see a monster?