“Yeah. I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
Huh.
I can’t stop the slightly crooked smile forcing itself onto my face. “I can’t promise you agloriousdeath at my side,” I say. “But death is highly likely.”
He shrugs.
I shrug back.
I let the moment settle a little before I consider the panthers and, finally, the keeper.
Each of the panthers tips their head in a nod.
The keeper exhales heavily before he gives me a nod.
I guess we’re in agreement.
“Okay, then,” I say to Lucian. “You can stay.”
A hesitant smile flickers across his lips. “It’s nice to meet you, big sister.”
“Yeah, you too, little brother.” But I quickly follow up with a dark scowl. “I’m not hugging you. You busted up my face.”
Before he took me to our father, Lucian tried to beat Elijah’s location out of me. I’d healed fast, but even so, I didn’t appreciate the treatment. Lucian had exclaimed at the time thathis father was going to kill him for losing Elijah. As it turns out, he anticipated our father’s reaction precisely.
Lucian suddenly looks a little defensive. “Don’t worry. I’m not a hugger.”
Well, now I’m tempted to hug him just to spite him, but that’s my dark nature.
“Are you sure you’re not a hugger?” I ask, edging toward him.
He said his mother was killed, but not when it happened, so I can’t be certain he ever experienced affection from her. I certainly can’t imagine our father ever hugging him. So maybe he just doesn’t know what hugs feel like?
I may have been deprived of a lot of things growing up in a cell, but in the first decade of my life, hugs from my mother kept me alive.
Lucian edges away from me. “I’m sure.”
“Well… who hugged you?”
His jaw clenches and he snaps at me so suddenly that I freeze where I stand. “Affection either comes with strings attached or it’s followed by a fist you don’t see coming,” he snarls. “I’ve had enough fists for today.”
My hands rise, but I don’t back off. I mean every word when I say, “Lucian, I’m sorry I pushed it. I won’t hug you if you don’t want to be hugged.”
At my promise, he stops inching away from me.
“Okay,” he says, wiping at the beads of sweat that appeared on his forehead and rolling out his shoulders, as if he’s trying to rid himself of tension.
Fuck.
The idea of being hugged really caused him anxiety.
I consider him carefully, trying to fight the sudden bleakness rising within my mind.
He may be even more damaged than I am.
Well, at least I can do something about his physical wounds.
I turn to the keeper, intending to ask him to heal Lucian, when Anarchy takes a step toward my brother.
