Page 67 of Two Chambered Heart

“Stuck here? You haven’t asked to leave or for us to take you anywhere. You haven’t even told us you had anywhere to go.”

That was true, she supposed. They hadn’t given her a way to leave, but she also hadn’t really asked. Over the weeks, they’d fallen into an easy routine, the three of them. “And if I did? Would you let me go?”

Kayden’s eyes narrowed, and a possessive look finally came over him. He wouldn’t let her go. She saw that plain as day on his face. “Would you want me to?”

“No,” she whispered honestly, a few tears still slowly tracking down her cheeks.

“Good. Because you’re mine, Little Fox, and I would chase you to the edges of this earth. No matter how long it took, I would find you and I would catch you.” Kayden held her face in his hands, brushing her tears away with his thumb. “And I think Jason feels the same.”

“Maybe, but it would be for a very different reason than you.”

Kayden clicked his tongue. “That’s not true. I’ve never seen Jason look at anyone the way he looks at you.”

Corey’s jaw almost dropped. “He looks at me like I’m dirt.”

“No. He looks at you like you’re a threat.”

She shook her head, not understanding. “Because of what I saw at that house…?” She trailed off, unable to wrap her head around the implication of Jason, a king in his own right, feeling threatened by some girl off the streets.

“No, not because of that. It’s because he cares about you, and Jason hasn’t cared about anyone in a very long time.”

“He cares aboutyou.”

"Other than me.” Kayden smirked before his face turned serious again. “Jason learned early on that the things he cared about could be used against him, exploited and taken away. Jason considers caring about someone a weakness. I believe he’s set on trying to make you hate him.”

“Well, it’s working.”

“Is it?” he asked with a knowing look.

She rolled her eyes, because even though she’d just spat those words at him, she didn’t really. She just couldn’t reconcile the two sides of him. But if what Kayden was saying was true, if the war between those sides was some perverse form of self-sabotage, she could understand that—could relate to that a little too closely.

“Jason has his own way of showing he cares. It was him who brought you clothes on that first day. It was him who bought you new running shoes and a phone.” Corey had started putting that together earlier, but it still shocked her to hear. “He’s a little bit of a mess, but if you can give him some grace while he figures it out, I promise it’ll be worth it.”

Kayden smiled down at her, and she felt herself smiling back.

He kissed her softly. “Let’s go up to bed. I think you need a cuddle.”

She laughed. How this strange, caring, wild man had embedded himself so deeply into her heart this quickly should have been concerning, but she was more grateful for him than she’d been for most things in her life.

Kayden scooped her up and carried her bridal-style back up the stairs, turning in the opposite direction of Jason’s room.

Kayden’s room was similar in size to Jason’s, but where Jason’s had been dark, Kayden had the same cream-coloured walls of her guest bedroom, and similarly coloured accents. He pulled the sheets down with one hand and laid her on the bed.

“Do you need anything? Water? A shower?” She could probably use a shower, but she wasn’t feeling up to it.

“No, just you,” she said, reaching out for him. Kayden stripped down to his boxers and cuddled in beside her.

She draped herself over his body and saw a picture frame on his nightstand. It was clear that the two young boys in the photo were the twins—they had the same floppy black hair, big, mischievous green eyes and happy, dopey smiles that she hadn’t seen on Jason’s adult face. They’d been downright adorable as kids, but she guessed cute kids grew up into beautiful men.

There was a little girl in the picture between them, with matching dark hair and green eyes. The twins had their arms slung over her shoulders. If the girl didn’t look so much younger than the boys, she would have thought they were triplets.

“Who’s that in the picture?” Corey asked Kayden.

“That’s our sister.”

“Oh wow, you guys are so cute together. Where is she now?”

“She’s dead.” Resignation clung to his words like dust, each syllable a finality.

---