“She never did that for me,” he said, anger making his voice thick and wet. “All those times, she never even tried to stop him. She never got us out of there. She justlethim.”
He broke off, teeth grinding together as if he could hold the words back, but they were going to come out, whether he liked it or not. “She lied to the pack, to child services. She lied to protecthim,not me.”
The words hit the rock around them like they belonged to someone else, his own voice unfamiliar. He stood in front of Dave, no pride left. Nothing left. Like the kid he’d been, with everything taken away from him.
“How didhedo it for Tristan when she didn’t do it for me?” His arms wrapped around his chest, holding himself together. Or trying to. “She was mymom. She was supposed to save me.”
He turned on his heel to stare into the darkness shrouding the land, because he sounded like that kid he used to be, before he knew better.
“I don’t know.” Dave’s voice was low but carried clearly in the night air. “I don’t know why, if your mom was too beaten down or what it was, Christian, but one thing I do know—you didn’t deserve what happened. You were—youare—just as worthy of being saved as Tristan. You’ve got a whole pack now who’d die rather than see you hurt.”
The shivers racking Christian’s body were getting worse and he didn’t know how to stop them.
“And you’ve got me,” Dave said.
The certainty in his voice was strong and true, and Christian stumbled over to him, desperate for shelter from the storm that was breaking inside him. He’d done this to himself. He’d opened himself up to Dave earlier, and it had allowedthis,this thing that was hollowing him out, opening him up so wide and deep that he was bleeding out and he couldn’t stop it.
He couldn’t see how to survive this. He’d denied them so long, the pain and hurt, the hate and fear, and now they’d broken freethey were going to tear him apart. But Dave’s arms were strong, and he held him through the maelstrom.
Afterward, when he could breathe again, when he wasn’t burying into Dave’s hold like a terrified pup into its dam, he couldn’t bring himself to raise his head. Even in the darkness, he couldn’t look at Dave because he was too open, too raw.
He stayed pressed to Dave’s neck, breathing in warmth and the smell of home.
Chapter Twenty-six
DAVE
Dave stirred when the warm, furry body that had spent the night draped over him climbed off and stretched. As he woke up properly, he became aware the sun was coming up, his mouth was drier than the desert, and he really needed to piss. There was no hope for it—he was going to have to try and move.
By the time he worked up his courage, Christian had shifted and was offering his hand to help Dave to his feet. Wary of putting any weight on his ankle, Dave found to his surprise that it was a manageable sharp ache, rather than the agony that had flared before. Maybe it was just a sprain after all.
He found a corner to take care of business, then limped over to where Christian was looking out over the gradually lightening land. Pink tendrils stretched across the sky in promise of the day to come. The sun’s first rays touched Christian’s hair with red and outlined the curving muscles of his body, and he looked almost too beautiful to be real.
“I guess I can see why they settled up here,” he said as Dave came up behind him.
Dave slid his arms around Christian’s waist and pressed up close. To keep them both warm in the cold of dawn, of course. Not because he was still haunted by last night and Christian’s terrible, wrenching sobs as he’d held on to Dave with the desperation of a drowning man. Christian’s voice was steady, but Dave could feel the tremor in his body. Maybe it hadn’t settled in him yet, all that had come loose.
At least he now understood Christian’s sudden desire to join Barton’s pack. It wasn’t abouthere.It was about getting away from the old ghosts that had been reawakened for him in Elk Ridge.
He nuzzled against Christian’s neck, wanting him to feel their connection, to know that he wasn’t alone any longer. They’d find somewhere to start again, together. His heart ached at the thought of leaving Matt’s pack, the people who had made him welcome, become his family. But Christian was leaning into him like a man relearning how to stand, and Dave couldn’t leave him.
They watched the land come to life before them, the strangely shaped blocks of black lava scattered over the landscape making it seem like something from another world.
“It’s how it must have looked at the dawn of time,” Dave said. “Makes you realize how insignificant our lives and our problems really are.”
Christian leaned further back into him. “You’re not insignificant,” he said quietly, and Dave’s breath seized in his throat.
It wasn’t just the words. It was the way Christian said them, like Dave mattered in a world that rarely noticed him. Christian didn’t compromise. He loved completely and fiercely, and he’d burn the world down for Dave.
He’d believed that before, in theory. But hearing Christian say it? That was everything. No longer did he have to gather clues, tosecond-guess—and always to wonder, somewhere deep inside, if he was just seeing what he wanted to see. Now heknew,beyond any shadow of doubt.
All those times he’d wished Christian would show his feelings likehedid—openly, easily—he hadn’t understood just how much Christian had already been giving, in every protective gesture, in his fierce loyalty. It hadn’t looked like what he’d dreamed of, but that was because it had been something deeper than words. Yet it had taken him hearing the words to finally see all the ways they’d been there all along.
Christian was stepping away, taking action while Dave was lost somewhere in his head. That, at least, hadn’t changed.
“I’m going to find another way back to the car,” Christian said. “You can’t climb the path.”
After shifting, he took himself back through the tunnel toward the old shifter camp. Dave sat at the bottom of the path and watched the sun come up, his face turned to the growing light.
