Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Alright. It’s gonna be fine,” I told her, never having felt as incompetent as I did right then.
I wasn’t a man who knew how to comfort. I didn’t do soft and sweet. Hell, I never wanted to. That said, Nyx was making me wish I knew what to do, or the right words to say.
All I could do was reach for her, pull her close.
If there was one thing I knew about Nyx and me, it was that things were good when our bodies were close.
So I got hers as close as I could.
My arms wrapped her up and she didn’t pull away, didn’t fight me.
Instead, she melted into me, her battered face pressed into my chest, her hands balled up in my shirt at my hips.
“I’m gonna fix it,” I told her as she let out a little sob. “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it,” I said, looking past Nyx to see Raff moving behind the couch as silently as he could.
Want me to get Dell? He mouthed to me.
Not yet I mouthed back, getting a nod out of him.
Then he pointed toward the stairs, then himself, before taking off, and leaving us alone.
“Alright. Come here,” I said, pulling her with me toward the couch as I felt wetness seep through my shirt.
Grabbing her, I pulled her down across my lap as I sat, wrapping her up again, just holding onto her as she worked through all of the emotions that she’d clearly been bottling up for far too long.
It wasn’t that Nyx had perfect control over herself all the time. She could be crazy or impulsive. Loud and uninhibited. And she was quick to anger and action when she was impassioned.
It was that Nyx had always been careful not to show emotions that made her think she looked weak.
The only time I’d seen her emotional was when Dell was hurt.
This was even worse.
And, judging by how tired she’d been looking for a while now, that made sense. Something had been eating away at her with no end in sight.
Nyx had likely just been tamping it down over and over since it started.
Now, it was all finally getting a chance to purge it all.
I never could have expected this shit, but I felt really fucking lucky that she chose me to come to.
I knew that she could have just as easily gone to the Murphys. She’d been close to them for a long time.
But she came to me.
That meant a lot to me.
More than I could have anticipated.
“It’s alright,” I murmured, surprising myself by leaning down to press a kiss to her head. “I will handle it, whatever it is. You’re not alone anymore.”
That, apparently, was either the exact right—or wrong—thing to say, depending on your perspective of why she sobbed harder at those words.
I, for one, figured it was probably a good thing.
I don’t know how long I held her, or how long she needed to work through her emotions, but my shirt was wet when she was done.
“Hold on, here,” I said, leaning forward to snag a roll of paper towels off the coffee table to hand her as she sniffled.
That was a perk to having the kid around, I guess. There were paper towels, rags, and wipes every-fucking-where.
“You want a drink?” I asked. “Got booze, got coffee, Morgaine has a shitton of fucking tea,” I offered as she slid off my lap to turn away while she blew her nose.
“Coffee,” she said, getting more paper towels to scrub at her face.
I figured she wanted a second as she pulled herself back together, so I got up, made her a cup, topped off mine, then came back to sit beside her.
“Talk to me Nyx.”
“I’m in a shitton of trouble,” she admitted, looking straight out, then raising her mug to her lips.
“I’m gathering that. Tell me what it is. Shit doesn’t feel as heavy when you talk about it.”
“God, I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning is usually a good place.”
“Right. The beginning. So… Czar.”
“Czar,” I repeated, the name ringing a bell, but in a distant sort of way. “Czar Petcova?” I repeated.
“I’d been nineteen. And I had no idea what he was into.”
“So, an ex,” I said, surprised at the surge of jealousy that moved through me. It was insane. I mean, I’d always known that Nyx had a past. So did I.
“Yeah. He dealt heroin. That’s what he went away for.”
“He do that to you?” I asked, jaw getting tight.
“He’s in prison. Let me circle back.”
“Okay.”
“Czar went away. I tried to move on. But letters showed up. And flowers. And then any guy I tried to date ended up suffering some sort of tragedy. Car accident. Mugging. Break-in. That sort of thing. But pretty nasty. The message seemed pretty clear to me.”
“No one could touch you but him,” I concluded.