Chapter 97. Overwhelming Agony

He emerged from the tree line like a phantom: a towering figure, bare-chested, every sinew and vein sculpted beneath his skin like carved marble. His leather trousers hung low on his hips, tantalizingly close to revealing more than mere mortal decency should allow. Dreadlocks of coal-black hair cascaded down his back, cartridges of shadow and mystery, and a stark, tribal-patterned tattoo snaked from his cheekbone, across his eye, and onto his forehead. But it was those eyes—pale, silvery, almost luminescent—that made me recoil as if struck by ice. They were eyes that had witnessed centuries of bloodshed, eyes that bore the weight of predator and prince all at once.

My pulse hammered. I'd thought Grant’s prowess was intimidating; this—this was something entirely different. If my own father had looked regal and dangerous in comparison, he now seemed a scrawny alleycat next to this apex predator. He was the stuff of nightmares and legends: a beautiful destroyer, a death-deal