Page 47 of Ruthless Reign

He flinched as I laid my hands on his back, and a leaden weight settled in my belly as I found him trembling. I slipped my hands around his torso, hugging him tight from behind.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered, his warm hand covering both of mine where they were knotted against his sternum. “I didn’t mean to?—”

“It’s okay,” I repeated. “I know.”

I held him until he stopped shaking, wishing I could pluck whatever horrible image his unconscious mind had conjured up while he slept and burned it to ash.

Kaleb sighed, tugging my hands until they came apart and he could pull me around him and into his lap.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

He gripped my hip with one hand, keeping me in place as he reached up with the other, fingers brushing over my collar, pushing my braid back away from my shoulder to check for injury across my throat.

I wanted to tell him if his brother barely left more than a few fingerprints the other day then he could rest assured I apparently didn’t bruise easy, but before I could open my mouth to speak, he kissed me.

A soft, soft kiss against my lips, and then my jaw, and then my throat. The side of my neck. “I should be asking you that,” he whispered against my collar, making me shiver. “Did I hurt you?”

I shook my head, thinking of about a hundred things he could do to make it up to me if he really wanted to. “No,” I said, shutting down the thirsty bitch angling for more cock before she even properly healed from the last pounding.

“Are you worried about tonight?” I asked.

“I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t,” he replied. “But that’s not…I’ve had night terrors as long as I can remember. They went away awhile but they came back. It’s not often or anything, but they’re so…”

“Vivid?” I supplied, hoping he could hear the understanding in my voice. I was blessed that the night terrors I got after Jericho only lasted a few weeks before petering out. They were so real, though. I remembered that part. I remembered waking up covered in sweat thinking he was there. That I was back in my bedroom at Briar Hall with a bullet in my chest, bleeding out.

“Very,” Kaleb agreed.

“What do you dream about?”

“It’s fucking stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.”

He gave me a look, and I gave him one right back.

“Try me?”

He dropped his head and was so quiet for so long I wondered if I shouldn’t have pushed him, but then he pulled me closer as he leaned back against the headboard and fixated on a spot in the blankets. “Did Hardin tell you I got lost when I was a kid?”

I squinted at him and he laughed hollowly. “Guess not. He wouldn’t. No one ever really talks about it. But I did. I was ten and I got lost for almost two weeks. Way out in Pico. We lived near there on the Canyon road.”

“Two weeks? Did you run away or something?”

He pursed his lips, nodding to himself. “Guess you could say that.”

I cocked my head at him and he got that distant look in his eyes again. “You know what happened with my Pa?”

I had a pretty good idea. I knew only what they told me. That he was a shitty human and that Hardin killed him and he and his Mom buried his body out in the canyons. Good riddance.

“Well, I was sleeping when it happened. I just remember waking up and going into the living room and seeing Ma on the floor. She wasn’t moving. Our dad was there, too, with his chest covered in blood. He was still alive, but barely. Hardin was there, kneeling just above him, with a knife. He wasn’t finished.”

“Oh my god.”

“I thought—actually, I don’t know what I thought exactly other than that I thought Ma was dead and when my brother looked at me, he didn’t see me, and I didn’t see him. He was just…gone. I got scared and ran. I ran for so fucking long, Vixen. And by the time I stopped running and knew I needed to go back and help Hardin, I didn’t know where I was. Didn’t know how to get back.”

My eyes burned. I could imagine him. A little, more innocent version of Kaleb, alone in the dark, in the woods. Thinking his Ma was dead. That his brother killed his abusive Pa and his whole life was about to implode.

“No kid should have to live through something like that. I’m so sorry.”

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