Beryl Crowne.
My brain twisted and bifurcated, trying to remember a time when Beryl Crowne had addressed me directly. I came up blank. Had we ever spoken? He was the boogieman, the thing that went bump in the night but disappeared under my bed when the lights came on.
“What did you do to her? Where the fuck is she?”
I shook out of it.
Grayson was right there. His voice tugged on my heart like a vicious wire, each second I didn’t go to him leaving bloody marks. I took a step—
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Beryl said lightly. Dangerously.
I froze, unsure about my step. Beryl glanced at his watch, as if his words weren’t a threat. As if his grandson wasn’t combusting behind him.
Something was so off about all of this.
So wrong.
“Been waiting for you,” Gray growled, curling his fist in the fabric of West’s shirt, yanking him off his smushed cream bed. Like candles snuffed out one by one, slowly conversations came to a halt. “Been waiting so goddamn long for this, but I told myself I wouldn’t do this in front of her.”
West laughed. “Well, shit, she’s right here.”
At that, Grayson looked up. My chest screamed to yell his name, I was a songbird with its vocal chords ripped out.
I am here.
Right. Here.
But Beryl fucking Crowne blocked me.
West swiped the blood from his nose, drawing back Grayson’s attention. “I’m generous, Crowne. I could be persuaded to share. We could fuck her together.”
Heat and embarrassment flooded me at West’s words, at having someone like Beryl Crowne overhear them. Beryl continued to examine his wristwatch.
West leaned forward, his lips at Grayson’s ear. “I think she’d like that, Grayson. I’ll even be nice, I’ll let you choose between her pussy and ass. Which would you prefer?”
Something dark fell across Gray’s face, and he smiled.
I knew that smile. I’d only seen it once before, the night…the night I almost ruined everything.
Predatory. Wild. Unhinged. His canine reflecting the chandelier’s light. I knew what was going to happen before Grayson reached for West’s throat.
Claws scraped on my chest the longer I went without talking to him. I couldn’t let him do this. I might not have a voice, but I could have a reaction. I could fucking do something. I could let Grayson know he wasn’t alone.
So, I shoved Beryl fucking Crowne out of the way.
My heart jackhammered just thinking about the repercussions—but I should have realized the wrong then, when the crowd dwindled, when it was only us left in the once bustling ballroom.
I was too focused on him.
Grayson tightened his grip on West’s throat, a dead, cold look in his eyes. Something in Crowne Hall had changed, after all—Grayson Crowne. Broken. Unhinged. Wild.
I opened my mouth to yell his name, and the moment I sucked in air, Grayson’s head snapped to mine, piercing through the veil.
He knew my breath.
He knew my sounds.
He knew my soul.