Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
I had to bite back the questions. I wanted to ask about his mom and the night everything changed. I’d read that he’d been feral and covered in blood when someone from the cult alerted the authorities. But I didn’t know if he knew why, what he’d seen, what kind of relationship he’d had with her. I just knew Crow was the kind of man who would blame himself even if it wasn’t his fault.
“Do you want to talk about her?”
“No!” he snapped, then closed his eyes. “I don’t…can’t. That’s enough.”
“I found my mom,” I admitted. For a moment, I wished I could suck the words back in, thinking that maybe I was telling him to try to get him to talk about his mom, but that wasn’t it. It was important to me to talk about Mom. I needed to show Crow all the parts of me, hoping he’d love me regardless.
“What happened?” he asked, knowing I needed him to.
“She relapsed. I found her passed out with a needle. She’d aspirated. I’d lain with her for hours before calling 911.” My head tilted down, the past trying to pull me under, but I fought it. It was good to speak about it. Talking helped.
Crow turned the stove off and came around the counter. “I’m sorry you lost her.”
“Me too.” I leaned into him, rested my head against his pec. “I overdosed before I went into rehab. I could have died, Crow, and all I can think is that if I had, I would’ve never met you. Sometimes I miss it, the way drugs can help you forget, but I don’t miss it while I’m on the mountain with you.”
He hooked his hand beneath my chin and tilted my head up. “Then you’ll have to stay forever.”
I smiled, and he kissed it, teased my lips with his tongue until I was drunk off him.
When my stomach growled, Crow chuckled and pulled away. “You need to eat.”
“Make your plate too, so we can eat together. Then I want…hmmm…let’s work on the truck for a while and then play a game of Stalk Cyrus.”
He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “One day, little lamb,” and like always, I knew what he meant. One day he would share more with me too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Crow
“Do you want to go for a walk with me, Crow?” Mom asked, making me smile. I wanted that more than anything. She loved this mountain the way I did, loved the smell of the earth, the comfort of the trees, and being surrounded by so much life. That’s what the mountain was to us—life. Animals and plants, all the living, breathing things that made this world a beautiful place.
I couldn’t speak like that around Chosen, and I tried not to do it with my mother either. I knew she would like it but that it would make Chosen mad. As much as I loved to share those things with her, I worried that if I did, I would disappoint him, and there was nothing in the world I hated more than that.
He was…well, he was Chosen. He was the most Enlightened of us all. To show love for other things was less love you could give him when he deserved it all.
My feet moved toward her like they had a mind of their own, but then I stopped, gaze darting back to the compound. Chosen wouldn’t like it. There was work to be done, and he wanted me to see Hillary again today. That was what men did, and if I wasn’t devoting my time to him or what he wanted from me, I should be with her. It would make a man out of me, though it didn’t feel that way. I didn’t like it, and she always wanted me to look at her, which made it harder. It wasn’t her fault. It was me who was broken.
“Crow… We should be able to go for a walk together. It’s… Never mind. You’re right.”
“No!” I rushed out before she could change her mind. I missed her. The older I got, the more responsibility Chosen gave me—I always had to do more to prove I was worthy of being his son. It left me barely any time to spend with her. “We can go on a short one.”
Mom smiled, and it warmed my chest. Her smile was one of my favorite things. When she did it, I couldn’t stop myself from doing the same.
We headed off into the woods. Neither of us worried about getting lost. This had been my home for sixteen years. It was all I knew.
“How are you doing?” Mom asked as we strolled along.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
I was fine. Of course I was fine. There was no other option.
“We just don’t get to spend as much time together as I’d like. I never know what you’re up to, and—”