Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Kept wondering if that’s what this was. This threat that loomed. If some monster had figured out who we were and was using the sister of one of our members as intimidation. A warning for what was coming.
Raven’s brow pinched, and she shifted so she could peer up at me. It sent the water sloshing around us. “How could you think I would ever want to distance myself from you? From my brother? From the rest?”
She made it sound like it’d be a betrayal.
My thumb stroked her cheek. “Because then you’d be safe.”
“I don’t want to be safe if it means being separated from the ones I love. From my family.”
Pain splintered through me. That old grief that had always made me terrified of getting too close. Terrified of loving. Terrified of the idea of losing someone I cared about more than life all over again.
Certain if it happened again, I would never survive it.
“You’ve always said you’d be willing to fight for me. Die for me. For all of us.” Raven’s words filled with urgency.
“Of course.” That went without question.
“Do you know so little about me that you would think I wouldn’t sacrifice the same?”
A swell of protectiveness tumbled through my guts, and my hand twitched where I set it on her face. “I’m not worth that kind of sacrifice.”
Whatever my fate was going to be, I had it coming to me.
I didn’t want her anywhere near it. Fucked up considering I didn’t think there was a chance I could let her go.
Something passed through her features. Something haunted. Ghosts that swept through that ink-stained gaze. “I’ve always been willing to fight for you.”
“But that’s supposed to be my job.”
“No, that is supposed to go both ways. Caring and loving and protecting. It can’t be one-sided, or it will never work,” she argued.
The quiet settled around us for a moment, her words weaving and winding, searching for a way to penetrate. To find a way to seep through the cracks whittled in the broken places inside me.
“Do you want that, Otto? A family?” she finally asked through the thick air.
Trepidation hammered through me, spirit clutching in a vise of regret. Part of me wanted to keep it locked inside, but I found myself admitting, “Tried to be that for Haddie and it didn’t turn out so great.”
Sorrow rolled. It’d become a taboo subject between us. Words left unspoken. But I wasn’t sure we could maintain that any longer when we were this close.
Raven barely shook her head on my chest, her words so quiet I could hardly hear them. “She was amazing, Otto. The kindest, most genuine best friend I could have asked for. And so much of that was because of you.”
Grief cut through me. A dull, bitter blade. “She’s gone because of me.”
“She got caught up. Made mistakes like we all do. That doesn’t make someone a bad person. The only bad people are the ones who stole her from us.” A tremor rolled through her, dark and ugly, palpable in our connection.
I wondered if there was a chance that she hated them as badly as I did.
If she’d understand what I had to do.
If she’d accept the resentment I still bore at the fact that I hadn’t been the one to be able to end them all.
“Did it so wrong.” It scraped out of me.
Her fingers drifted over my pecs. “They’re the ones who incited it all. They’re the monsters.”
But she didn’t know it all. My retaliation that had cost everything.
A stupid fucking choice. A bomb dropped, and I hadn’t been able to stop the fallout.
“You were fighting for us all along,” she added.
My eyes squeezed closed on the trust she kept trying to impart on me that I couldn’t receive, and I swallowed some of it back, the agony that kept wanting to rise to the surface, and changed the subject.
“Is that what you did tonight? Fought for me? Drawing that line in the sand?”
She settled her head back on my chest, the words wisps. “I was fighting for us. Fighting for what I deserved. For what you deserved.”
“Can’t say I’m mad that you did.”
“Oh, you’d better not be mad. If you were, you’re not going to get any more of this.” She squirmed against me, her skin slick with water.
I choked over a groan that became a laugh, and I hugged her against me. “That so? Now which of us would be paying the price?”
Could feel the heat race across her flesh. “Okay, fine, you’re going to get all of this. All the time. Whenever you want it. I’ll just have to find a different way to punish you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Definitely.” A tease scampered all over her stunning face.
“Does it make me a masochist that I really want to find out what that means?” I needled, wanting to know how far she might take it. “Time out? A spankin’?”