Read Drowning In The Dark: #4 The Veil Series for Free Online

to think of something to say, some wonderful words of encouragement, a way to sweep the implications aside, but all I came up with was, “Oh.”

Chapter Four
    I woke to the sounds of someone rattling around my kitchen cupboards and the smell of cooking bacon. I was either being burgled by a hungry thief, or someone was in my kitchen, cooking breakfast. That someone could only be Stefan. He’d left me the previous night, saying he’d be back with a plan. I’d waited, but after two hours, exhaustion had gotten the better of me. I didn’t sleep though, not really. Sleep was a luxury I no longer had. The nightmares had come the way they always did, dark, twisted things, so deep, so hungry, they were almost alive enough to exist once I snapped open my eyes and listened to my own scream ringing in my ears.
    I threw my legs over the edge of the bed, tossed on some jeans and a sweater, and trudged from my bedroom into the kitchen. And sure enough, there he was, brewing coffee, frying bacon, and making toast. He’d ditched the stolen sweats for jeans and a button-down, dark blue shirt. Rolled-up sleeves revealed steely arms, arms I yearned to have wrapped around me. He had held me once, held me against him as he’d whispered words of hope to the naïve half-blood girl I’d once been. At least that girl had hope. What did I have now? I hadn’t realized how I’d ached to have company, and seeing him doing simple domestic things, like normal people did, left me speechless. Thankfully, he didn’t notice me blink back a surge of emotion. Inside of a few seconds, I had myself under control again. I hadn’t expected him to come back. The men in my life tended to disappear with no explanation, and if they did return, it was often with dire news. Yet, there he was, and by the looks of it, he could fry up a mean breakfast. The world really must be ending .
    “Hey.” He spilled the strips of bacon onto a plate already stacked with toast, fried tomato, eggs, and a salad tossed on the side as an afterthought.
    He’d been shopping for groceries too? For me? I hitched myself onto the breakfast barstool. “Wow, this is… Wow.”
    He slid the plate to me and flashed a smile. “You have an institute tail parked outside.”
    I tensed, a piece of toast half way to my mouth. “Really?”
    “Yeah.” Leaning on the breakfast bar, he nodded toward the window across the living room behind me. “Enforcers are about as subtle as demons bargain hunting at a garage sale.”
    “Were you seen?”
    Stefan gave me a give-me-some-credit look. I shrugged and crunched into my toast. He hadn’t made breakfast for himself, I noticed. So not staying then. “Are you going to watch me eat?”
    “I killed him and hid the body in the trunk of his car.”
    A jagged piece of toast lodged in my throat. “What?” I spluttered.
    His grin was pure mischief. “You think I would?”
    “I don’t know… Prince of Wrath much?” I coughed and rinsed the toast down with some juice.
    “Your Institute tail is fine, despite there being a kill-order out on me. I guess I’m reformed.” His lip curled. “Mostly. I can’t take back what I’ve done, but I can make up for it by stopping the princes.” His smile wavered. The memories of his encounter with the princes was obviously not pleasant.
    “They really want you dead, huh?”
    “I’m a half-blood prince—not the Hogwarts kind—and an ex-enforcer. Plus, my father’s the Institute’s employee of the month. I’m sure my every breath infuriates them. Not to mention, Wrath wants his title back.”
    “Oh, well. At least we don’t do things by halves any more, right?”
    He chuckled softly. This was…nice. Really nice. Too nice. I had issues with nice. Nice threw me off my game like nothing else. People being nice leads to hope, and false hope is a terrible thing. False hope got a nine-year-old girl killed. False hope allowed me to believe I could live a normal life. I put my toast down and frowned