Lust For Life: Take Refuge In the Villain's Heart

After the downfall of her adoptive father, Elyssa Hendrick must escape the Reds – a posse of vigilantes who called themselves the Advancementists – and get out of the Commonwealth. She blackmailed the owner of Sealion Cargo and got on the ship to the Republic. While trying to get away from the Republican Customs, she hid in the interstice of containers and waited for her chance to sneak on top of a plying truck.
The moment she was about to bolt to action, a large hand gloved in leather wrapped around her mouth from behind.
Seized by a panic such as she had never experienced in the sixteen short years of her life, she scrambled in his grip. A whiff of blood mingled with an intoxicating scent of cedar.
“Shh.” He lowered his head.
Clamped to his firm chest, she gulped at the dark red seeping through his shirt ivory white. She risked a glimpse up. Under a silver-black phantom half mask was a sculpted face. His jet-black hair looked wet, sweeping his shoulders. Contrasting his pale complexion were those burgundy red lips, above which, a straight nose cast a shadow on his thin eyes the color of onyx. He glanced down at her, his gaze otherworldly.
“If you’re thinking of getting on the back of the truck,” he wheezed, his larynx heaving. “Bad idea.” Deep like the rumbling sea and magnetic, his voice threatened to drown any audience.