My arms tightened around him, angling his forehead to my neck as one of my hands cradled the back of his head. “I’ve got you.”
“I-I don’t want… I can’t… b-be… without y-you…” he cried, his chest heaving as he reached for me.
Unsure of what he needed, I allowed his hands to explore before they found the one I’d wrapped around his shoulder. Freeing it from its hold, he brought it to his chest, his thumb and forefinger stroking the length of my second digit, another effort he allowed me to see as a means to ground himself. With each twirl of the pads of his fingers, he danced down my hand, continuing the same pace, and with it, his breathing slowed slightly.
It was a coping mechanism so child-like, sofragilethat I desired nothing more than to sit there with him for as long as he needed, allowing him to settle into the side of himself that I knew had been shoved off far too many times.
“P-Please… P-Please… I-I… I need… I can’t… I c-can’t…”
“You won’t lose me, because I’m staying here with you…always.”
With hitched breaths, he continued, his touch working its way across every inch of skin on my hand. After four passes, he settled into me more, his head tucking into me tighter as he lulled himself back from his heightened state. Each breath came easier as he toyed with each of my fingers, and in that moment, I saw the Thorne Graves who’d never been able to be a child. The Thorne Graves who had to grow up far faster than he deserved. The Thorne Graves who harbored a gentleness I wished to pull from him more, no matter what it looked like, so long as his inner child felt seen, heard, and understood by me.
So long as I became his safe space.
“I’m here… I’m here,” I repeated, holding him close. I wanted nothing more than to ease the burdens he was facing, but if I couldn’t remove those emotions, I’d linger beside him until they subsided.
The single word that left him brought me back to the night he’d rescued me from my meltdown, even after I’d destroyed everything he held dear. “S-Stay…”
“I will never leave you again,” I cried out. “O-Of course… I’ll stay. A-Always. I will always stay.”
“S-Stay… Y-You promise… You promise you w-won’t… break i-it…?”
“I promise.” No hesitation because there was none. He was my soul, my heart, the very definition of the air I breathed. Without him, I remained in a rotting state, a corpse of a man who succumbed to loneliness.
His coaxes stopped, his touch falling still against me, and when I looked down, he hadn’t pulled away. Instead, his lids had fluttered closed, a peacefulness overtaking his expression regardless of the tear stains that coated his cheeks. And curled around two of my fingers were his, my hand tucked tightly against his chest as if the mere thought of letting me go became something even his subconscious had grabbed onto.
He was asleep in my arms, clinging to me with pure and utter fear of losing me again.
A fear I would never let come to fruition again, because this was my promise to him… to the life we would build together. A life filled with the happiness we’d deserved from the beginning, not plagued with my father’s torture or trauma. A life Thorne deserved, one where he could rest safely beside me until he was comfortable. A life teeming with the beauty we thought non-existent because it had never been given to us.
That would change nowandfor the future. A future where both of us would heal and learn to grow, to overcome the hardships of our pasts, because at the center of it all, the foundation that held us together was simple.
Lovein its truest fruition.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THORNE
The liveliness of the animal shelter would have annoyed me in the past, but I was a far different man compared to who I was when I joined the ranks. Various barks echoed off the cement walls, the dogs we’d come to see begging for an escape just like we had during our time beneath General Valens’ reign.
And that’s precisely why we’d come—to provide salvation to an animal in need of saving.
Walking behind Oren, a gentle smile caressed my lips as I watched him glance between the array of cages. His cerulean gaze darted through the space as he examined the overwhelming number of dogs awaiting their second chance in this life, a second chance we’d been granted with one another.
And God, I fucking loved him.
“I’m not sure which one to choose. They all need help,” Oren said with a pitiful whine, his lip jutting out slightly as he glanced over his shoulder. “Yousurewe can’t get at least two?”
Shaking my head, I leaned against the wall. “I suppose two could work. We do have a backyard that needs to be roamed, so I don’t see that taking two pups home would be an issue.”
He grinned, his eyes sparking as he jumped up in excitement. “You cave too easily.”
“Do you want me to change my mind?”
He opened his mouth, but he said nothing, opting to bite his lip instead. Shaking his head, he placed his hands on the back of his head, taking steps forward to browse through the cages.
Stopping beside the dog Ileastwanted, he jutted his finger to point at it. “That one. Just look how cute he is.”
