Page 5 of Ruthless Reign

Slowly, I turned back around to face Hardin, reaching for the light switch in the dark. But when I flicked it on, the busted bulb only sparked before dying out. Illuminating Hardin’s rage-filled features in reddish orange for an instant before plunging us both back into darkness.

I set my jaw. Feeling the door against my back, I sensed Kaleb there on the other side, waiting with bated breath to see if he’d need to break it down to get to me.

He wouldn’t.

A memory flashed in my mind, and I held on to it, remembering the feel of the monster in the dark. His hand grabbing me, pushing me up against this door. The feel of his lips rough on mine. His tongue invading my mouth.

I pushed off from the door, closing the distance between us, stepping carefully over the carnage as I followed the sound of his ragged breaths until I was so close I could feel his heat.

I threw my arms around him, pressing my face into his chest. He recoiled at my touch, a soft growl on his lips, but I held on, pressing into him. Forcing him to take my offer of comfort.

He stood there, his heart pounding through his chest into mine. His muscles rigid. His breaths sawing in and out hard and fast. His back shaking.

I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that, but Hardin didn’t push me away, so I stayed. And I stayed.

I stayed until his breathing evened out and his muscles twitched and softened beneath me. Until his pulse skipped and evened into a regular rhythm. And eventually, until his arms came around me.

Hardin pushed his face into the crook of my neck, breathing me in, pulling me up off my feet. He sat on the edge of his bed, taking me with him onto his lap, never leaving that spot in the crook of my neck.

“I’ll stay,” I told him quietly. “And we’ll figure this out.”

He squeezed me tightly, and I swallowed against the swell of emotion constricting my lungs.

“Don’t,” came his muffled reply against my neck, his breath fanning over my collarbone having no fucking right to turn me on right now.

My brow furrowed. “Don’t what?”

He sighed heavily, saying nothing else.

“You have to talk to someone,” I tried. “If you keep holding it all in all the time, you’ll explode.”

I felt the rubble at my feet and revised that last statement. “You’ll explode worse. And I don’t think you want Kaleb or me in the blast radius.”

His arms around me loosened and already I wanted him to hold me tighter. Here, in the dark, with my own personal monster, was where I felt the safest.

Maybe it was where he could feel safe, too.

With the darkness obscuring his face, maybe he could talk to me. Just a little.

“Please, Hardin. Talk to me.”

“I could’ve killed you,” he said, his voice a rumble against my throat.

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t have.”

He shook his head in reply. “Not here. Not now. There. I-in the canyon.”

“What do you mean?”

He lifted his head from my shoulder and pushed his hand through his hair, letting out a ragged breath, and I was so fucking glad he was speaking to me that I waited, holding my breath, to hear him speak again.

This was trust, I realized.

This was the way he trusted people.

“The leader of the Sons, he had explosives strapped to his own chest.”

My brows draw together, finally seeing what they already knew. That this guy, whoever he was, was completely insane. And I knew from experience that you couldn’t bargain with insanity. Couldn’t make deals with madness.

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