Free Silas (Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (Desired by a Dragon Book 1) by Terra Wolf, Hailey Storm

him thinking I was going to call the cops and turn him in the second I stepped foot inside my place.
    Silas started toward me before I could think of anything. His hands reached out and I flinched, thinking he was going for my throat when he was only reaching for my shoulders. Regret shifted through his eyes. Did he regret what I’d seen tonight? Did he regret what he told me? Or did he regret what he was about to do to me because of those things?
    I didn’t want to wait around and find out.
    “I think I should go.” The words tumbled from my mouth sounding scared and weak, which seemed to make the regret in his golden-colored eyes more prominent.
    “Please don’t. I need to explain a few things to you before you leave here tonight.” Excitement and terror from his words, and the feel of his hands smoothing along my arms, caused bumps to prickle across my skin.
    “I promise I won’t say a word to anyone. I’ll keep my mouth shut about everything that happened here tonight.” My voice trembled as my heart thundered in my chest.
    Silas’s warm breath caressed against my face as he expelled a long sigh. “This is not the way I wanted you to find out about this side of me.” His head hung in shame and so help me God, but the sight of his brokenness kindled a sense of sadness inside me.
    I felt bad for a man who’d said he killed a woman moments before. Silas could be a serial killer, and yet here I was feeling bad for him. What was wrong with me?
    “I’m just going to come out and say it, because I don’t know any other way.” His eyes locked with mine and I could feel his emotions as though they were my own. All of his shame, heartache, and something else I couldn’t name twisted in the air around us. “I would prefer to leave the cops out of this, because this isn't a normal situation, Violet.”
    “What type of situation as it, then?” A warning burned deep in my stomach as soon as the words left my mouth, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
    “One of the supernatural variety.”
    Fear clenched at my gut, prompting me to step away from him, but it was the look in his eyes that forced me to stay.
    “The creature you saw earlier… it was me.” He said the words slowly, emphasizing each one. “I was in my true form.”
    My eyes bounced around the room as I jerked myself out of his grasp. “That’s not possible.”
    Great. I finally found the man of my dreams, and he thought he was a freaking lizard creature with wings. Fantastic. Casey was going to have a field day with this when I told her. I swallowed hard, realizing telling Casey any part of this night might not be the best idea.
    “I know how it sounds, but it’s the truth.” He erased the distance I’d placed between us. For every forward step he took, I matched it with two away from him. “You know what you saw, Violet. The only explanation is the one I gave you, something of the supernatural variety. I’m a dragon.”
    I closed my eyes and shook my head. Images flashed behind my eyelids. Clips of him being swallowed by air that seemed to vibrate. Flashes of his skin taking on a scaly texture and breaking out into spikes all over. Large wings expanding from his back.
    “No.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples. There had to be something wrong with my brain, because there was no way I saw Silas shift into a dragon. Dragons weren’t real.
    “Yes.” His hands were on me again, smoothing along my arms and rubbing my shoulders. “I’m a dragon shifter.”
    The scent of his cologne invaded my nose, and the feel of his touch had sensations spiraling through me that surprised me. Maybe he wasn’t the only twisted person in the room. I began to wonder if I was as sick and demented as he was. What kind of person did it make me if given everything I’d seen tonight, and everything he’d said, I still wanted him?
    I pulled away from him and pressed my back against the wall behind me. My eyes squeezed shut and my fingernails dug into