Silenced Read Online Free PDF

and forth in my brain.
    Her mocha skin flushes slightly, unaware of the war inside my mind. She raises her thin, arched eyebrows. I stand, tightening every muscle in my body as I study her reaction. As she lifts herself up on her tiptoes, then back onto the balls of her feet, I try to keep her desires out.
    Which is…
    Impossible.
    Just when I’m thinking one of us needs to go before things go bad for her, she shrugs.
    “Well, I know what I signed up for.”
    When she releases the guitar case, she actually smiles. My mouth falls dumbly.
    “Come again?”
    She nods, lowering the case onto a pile of clothes and stuff I once again, just noticed.
    “Yeah, my roommate was tapped for this. She was a sympathizer so…” She runs a finger across her neck and makes a croaking noise. “But when I heard about you, I made a show of stealing her bread.” A smug smile paints her lips. “And the only thing worse here than sympathizing is rule breaking.”
    She sounds proud, a fact that interests me.
    Not that this is new to me. I’m used to people, especially females, seeking me out. Most of the time they don’t even know they’re doing it. Maybe her being so intentional is what intrigues me.
    “So…” I stroll back to the seat at the desk and spin around to face her. “You want this?”
    Shuffling across the carpet, she takes her former place on the bed. Her head tilts against her shoulder and a thoughtful look graces her face. “If what I’ve heard about you is true, then yes.”
    I stop myself from rolling my eyes. Like I said, I get this a lot. The ones that come looking. Apparently, bitches love sirens.
    That’s always been part of the problem.
    I clear my throat. “Depends. What have you heard?”
    “You know… beautiful women, draped on rocks luring sailors to their doom.”
    I shake my head. “That would be water nymphs. Nasty bitches. They eat people.”
    She laughs, and again, the sound digs into me, adding fuel to the inferno. I take deep breaths and grapple for control. My fingernails dig into my palms.
    “That’s what I heard as a young girl.”
    “And recently?” I say, teeth clenched.
    She shrugs. “That the beauty of the song is worth it. And that you are all… irresistible. That the males can…” She places a hand next to her mouth and leans in like she has a juicy secret. “Give women everything they desire.”
    Yup, that’s pretty much the standard, romanticized truth.
    I force my gaze away from her face. “How old are you, Tahlia?”
    “Twenty-two,” she says.
    Another wave of her energy smacks me in the face. I force in a shuttering breath and close my eyes. My head swims. Soon, the pain will rip me away again. Soon I will be a brutal monster.
    My body jerks forward.
    Not soon, now.
    Tahlia gasps. I double over and bite down a grunt. I can feel her hovering over me as my body wrenches from painful bolts.
    The agony rips my mind, wraps silence around my nose, my mouth. Steals the air.
    “How long has it been?” Her voice comes at me like there are miles between us.
    I try to swallow and wind up croaking. I gasp for air, but it sticks to the edge of my lips, closing off my throat. Caving in my lungs.
    I can’t…
    Answer.
    I can’t be…
    Can’t control it much longer My gaze lifts toward her, my movements wooden, my fingers buried on either side of my face.
    No time to bang my head up against my inner moral compass. I smile. There is a monster pulling the strings. It draws her in.
    Her eyes go blank, and I taste her.
    She’s had a great loss. Maybe a parent. Maybe a sibling. I peer around the hole it carved in her. Black and tinged deep blue from the swelling power. I chew the part of herself she gave up to deal with loss between my teeth. My chair crashes down as I lift myself up to stand before her.
    Her eyes are locked onto my face.
    Her energy floods me with pins and needles. I burn to fix her. And she’ll let me. She’s nothing locked in my gaze. A source. A pleasure.