“What happened? How’d you—” His eyes dropped to the broken contraption between my legs. Sadness flickered across his face. “Damn. That was my favorite one.”
My hand shook as I wielded the glass shard, dazed and too tired to move, too tired to do anything but sit there and hope he didn’t come closer.
The expression on his face was so confusing. He looked sad, not angry, and his posture was non-threatening.
But that was probably a trick. It was all a trick.
I didn’t know why he was waiting for me to let down my guard when he could just overpower me at any moment. He was obviously much bigger and stronger than me, and if he decided to do that, I didn’t stand a chance. I’d fight, though. Right to the end.
He sighed and raked a hand through his hair—hair that was cut short very neatly and looked feather-soft, not coarse and stringy like Hunter and Hayes’s hair. “That’s alright, I’m sure you didn’t mean to.” He finally seemed to notice the piece of glass in my hand, but the next words out of his mouth were notwhat I was expecting. “Damn it, did you hurt yourself again? You really shouldn’t touch broken glass.”
My heart slammed against my rib cage as he walked toward me.
Should I just end it before he could get his hands on me?
I’d had my freedom. I would die before I let anyone keep me locked up again.
I breathed in deeply as a cloud of calm settled over me.
I moved the sharp point of the glass to the underside of my forearm and pressed down.
“What are you—hey! No!”
For such a large man, he was fast. He was on me in seconds, gripping my wrist as he pried my fingers open, letting the glass fall from my hand. He lifted me off the floor, cradling me in one arm, then held my wrists together as I snarled and snapped at him.
Every moment of struggle was accompanied by overwhelming agony; I was only making my injuries worse, I knew that somewhere in my logical mind, but there was nothing rational about this all-consuming need toget out,get away.
My soul couldn’t take another day behind bars. Not even another minute.
When something touched the wound on my shoulder, I jerked with a sharp gasp, completely immobilized by the pain. I felt a rip, like someone had reached into the hole and pulled it apart.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s okay. Everything’s okay, I promise.”
His words were distant and muffled, the heat of his body against mine like the heart of a bonfire.
To know that kind of warmth before I died…it was more than I ever could’ve asked for.
Chapter 4
Cain
He went limp, his head rolling into my chest, the muzzle bumping my pec. I let my gaze trail down to his hand, which was bleeding from the broken snow globe.
Goddamn, he was ferocious.
Why the hell had he gone into that drawer? There was nothing but junk in there. And damn it, that had been my favorite snow globe. I could maybe fix it. Maybe. But…that wasn’t important right now.
His hands were so small compared to mine. I brushed my thumb down his fingers, turning his palms up. Only one had been cut, so I rested his uninjured hand on his stomach and looked at the cut on his other palm.
It wasn’t too deep, wasn’t bleeding very much, and wouldn’t need stitches. Just needed to be cleaned and bandaged.
He felt warm and a bit clammy. Was it a fever?
This poor little guy. I had no idea what he’d been through before stumbling onto my property and falling into the pit, but he seemed like he wasn’t ready to trust me at all.
Luna had been like that when I first found her. It hadn’t taken her long to warm up to me, though.
Maybe if I gave him apples he’d see I wasn’t so bad. I had way too many apples, so I really hoped he liked them.
