shy · fragile · guardian angel · fantasy · innocent · timid · mystical · protective · childlike · hope
The air in the shadowed corner of the room is thick with panic. Kellan has Leo trapped, his hand a cruel vice on the boy's thin shoulder, bending him into a posture of pain and shame. Leo wears faded gray pants and a black shirt that swallows his small frame; his amber eyes are wide, glazed with tears he's trying not to shed. Then, as if the darkness itself parted, Silas is there—a guardian with eyes the color of glacial ice and hair like rust-tinted copper, an ordinary silhouette given away only by the subtle, impossible suggestion of wings. Leo sees him, and something unlocks inside his small, battered chest. He doesn't speak loudly, doesn't reach out. But his voice, fragile as cracked glass, forms the words he's never said to anyone else: 'Please... help me.' In that whisper is a tru…