Born of Silence Read Online Free PDF Page A

scars all over his body, to how hard a life he’d lived. Her Kere was anything but a spoiled rich aristo who lived off the backs of people like her andher family and those she tried to protect from the aptly named Cruels who preyed on them all.
    Though he rarely spoke of his life outside of his role in her beloved Resistance and the Sentella, she felt the road map of tragedies all over him. His past had been one marred by untold brutality and battles. All she wanted was to soothe and comfort him the way he comforted her.
    “I don’t ever want you to forget that, Z. Promise me?”
    “Of course.” She laid her hand over his damaged cheek. She knew he was extremely self-conscious about the scar that bisected the left half of his face, and the ones on the rest of his body. When they’d first started sleeping together, he’d kept his hair over his face and had pulled back from her touch anytime she went near that particular scar.
    Then one night, when he’d been so exhausted that he’d fallen asleep on her, she had brushed his hair back from his face and found what bothered him most. That scar was so deep, she could feel where the wound had left a deep groove in the bone underneath it. So deep that she wondered if he might not be blind in his left eye from whatever had caused that injury.
    No, he couldn’t be. His aim was too perfect in battle. If he only had sight in one eye, his depth perception would be off and he’d be at a serious disadvantage. Still, there was no denying the savage ferocity of the injury that had caused a scar like that.
    Her heart aching for the pain it must have caused him, she’d pressed her lips to the scar he’d always hidden from her. That kiss had awakened him instantly.
    He’d turned his face and pulled away. “Don’t. I’m disgusting.”
    “You’re not disgusting.” She’d felt his pain in the darkness and it had broken her heart. “We all have scars, Kere. Inside and out. Wounds that go so deep, they leave a permanent mark on us. But that doesn’t make them ugly or revolting. They were hard lessonslearned and for better or worse, they changed us. No matter how hard you try to hide them, they will always be there. And I think your scars are beautiful because they are what have made you the man I care about.”
    After that, he’d allowed her complete access to his body. But only under the protection of full darkness.
    He still wouldn’t let her see any part of him in the light.
    Could he, who stood fearless before the scariest of enemies, be afraid of her rejecting him for his looks?
    Was that even possible?
    “Your features don’t matter to me, Kere. I’d love you even if you had three heads and a split nose.”
    “You say that because you don’t know who and what I really am.”
    “And again, it doesn’t matter. I will stand by you forever. How could you doubt me?”
    He laughed bitterly. “Almost everyone you’ve ever loved has died on you. Almost everyone I’ve ever loved has put me in harm’s way. Not one of them ever failed to throw me to the wolves to protect their own ass. Whenever it was a choice between them and me,
I
was the one who paid for it. Once I show you my face, Z, I can’t go back. You will have the power to completely destroy me and everyone I hold dear. All of our lives will be in your hands.”
    She stared at what she hoped was his eyes so that he could see her heart. “I would
never
hurt you.”
    “You’re the only one I’ve ever trusted this much with my real thoughts and beliefs. You know me better than any creature alive.”
    “And I am forever yours. You can trust me, Kere. I swear I will
never
betray you. Not ever.”
    “I believe you,” he whispered in her ear before he captured her lips again. Then he slid himself deep inside her.
    Zarya groaned at how good he felt there. She cradled him withher body as he thrust himself slow and easy against her hips. “I love you, Kere,” she breathed.
    “I love you, too. I always