And neither will I.
His jaw locked, and he stumbled forward, muttering. “Fuck you.”
I smiled, sharp and humorless.
“Oh, you want something outside your dreams, Baby Boy?” I closed the shallow distance between us, slow and tauntingly close. “Every day, all that pretending. It must be exhausting, Baby. Pretending to love her, pretending you don’t love me. But all this hunting, drinking, and fucking can’t erase me, can it? You can’t scrub me out of your mind.”
He staggered back a step, slipping in the mud. His hand went out for balance, catching a tree, and when his eyes found mine again, there was that raw edge I’d always wanted to rip open, the fear tangled with want, and hate knotted with intense hunger.
And desire.
“Stop playing big, bad hunter when you’re drunk off your ass,” I remarked, almost gently, though it came out like a growl. “You are much too smart to act so incredibly stupid. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I am fucking fine,” he spat, but his knees told a different story as he fell back into the tree. “What if I am, Carrington. So fucking what. Mad you won’t be the one finally to end my sorry ass life too?”
I moved fast, close enough to see the pulse hammering in his throat. Close enough, I felt the heat of him even in the storm. I reached out and snatched the whiskey bottle from his hand and slammed the glass onto the trunk above him. Glass littered down, some cutting his beautiful face as he hissed.
“Don’t fucking say that, Shiloh. You wanna die so bad?”
I reached up to his throat, holding the remaining jagged edge of the bottle to his thrumming pulse.
“If you go out, it’s by my fucking hand, Baby Boy. You ready for that?”
My lips twitched, aching to feel him, take him…remind him where he really belonged.
He pushed forward, the glass breaking skin and creating a shallow cut. His eyes were pure rage and pain.
“Go ahead, Care Bear. Do it. You stole my life the minute you chased me down. Be a man and end what you started.”
End what I started…
How can I when it would be the end of me?
I just stood there, the rain sliding off me in rivulets. I watched the blood drip from his neck while he tried to keep himself upright. He looked like he was swaying with every gust of cold wind. The bow slipped from his hand into the mud, and he didn’t bother picking it up. That told me everything I needed. He wasn’t out here to hunt.
He was running.
From her.
From himself.
From me.
“You can’t, can you? Do you only kill for your daddy?”
I growled, slamming him harder into the tree, my body keeping him on his feet.
“You don’t even know where you’re going, do you?” I said, throwing the glass away from us, letting it shatter against another tree. The storm nearly drowned my voice. “Just stumbling around like a fucking ghost, huh, Sunshine? What’s the plan, Shiloh? Fall face-first in the mud or get gored by a boar?”
His lip curled, a shadow of his usual defiance, but it faltered quickly. “Why do you fucking care, Killer?” His words were slurred together, but painfully clear at the same time.
“Why?” I barked out a laugh, sharp and ugly. “Because I know you better than she ever will. Because I’ve been watching you play house with my fucking sister. A woman you don’t want. You’re waiting for the day you finally snap, or she does.” I leaned in, my mouth near his ear, the heat of him intoxicating even through the stink of whiskey on his entire body. “And maybe I care because I’m the only one who knows what you really need, what you fucking want, Shiloh. And it’s not being a coward and killing yourself.”
He shivered, but not from the cold. His eyes slid shut like he hated how my voice clung to him. Like he hated the truth but couldn’t deny it.
“I don’t—” he started, but the words tangled in his throat, broken by the storm and the liquor in his blood.
I put my hand on his jaw, forcing him to look at me. His skin was slick from rain and blood. His thick black lashes clumped together with sleepiness. His pupils were blown wide, and not just from the drink, but from me being so close.
