Page 88 of Lana Pecherczyk
“Wrong.” Another hard poke. “Try again.”
“Don’t fucking touch me.” He shoved back, definitely slurring now. “Of course, it’s about him. It’s always about him, and I’m sick of it.”
“Wrong again.” Another shove. “It’s about your own shit, and you need to sort it out before you fuck everything up.”
“I’m going to find that cryptex.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
“Cloud deserves what’s coming to him.”
“Not talking about that either.” Ash’s narrowed eyes darted to River’s Well-blessed mating marks.
Blake. Her name, her scent, her taste.Her.
“My mate is none of your business,” River growled through increasingly numb lips.
“Maybe she’s not.” Ash’s stare was infuriatingly steady. “Or maybe you should start acting like she’s yours.”
“Are you threatening to steal my mate?”
“Only you would think that.”
River shoved him. “Should have left you in chains.”
Ash’s expression went flat. Dead.
Silence.
Oops. River shouldn’t have said that. Guilt hit him hard in the chest, stealing his breath. Moonshine made any deep-seated fear seem like the truth in the moment. But the truth he’d neglected to voice was that his self-destructive pattern of protection had begun. How he pushed away those who mattered before love grew too real, saying things he couldn’t take back.
Love meant that inevitably, someone’s heart would break. Whether ostracized by the community, like his parents, or whether fate turned love into betrayal. Into obsession. There was no perfect, happy ever after like everyone dreamed of—only pain.
And no matter what River tried, what he said or did, he ended up failing. Just like he did with Cloud on that airship, nothing he said mattered. He couldn’t take the words back. Nothing would make them right.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Ash said, his voice quiet. “Otherwise, I’d never have had the chance to do this.”
His fist connected with River’s stomach, exploding eye-watering pain throughout his body.
“I deserved that,” he choked.
“Yes, you did.” Ash calmly dusted his wings and straightened his shirt. “It’s because of the Umbrias, because of you and Cloud, that I learned a good life was possible. It didn’t have to be about accumulated things. It could be more.” He stared down at River,who was still doubled over and wheezing. “And now both of you are so caught up in what you’ve lost, you don’t even appreciate that you had it in the first place.”
“Great,” he groaned. “Now I feel like a floater.”
“You owe me another hit.”
“What for?”
“For sticking your dick in my face. Seems to work fine to me.”
At least Ash’s eyes twinkled with humor instead of that dead look from earlier.
River glanced down. His cock was still hard, even through the moonshine. He grinned. “Yeah, it works fine, doesn’t it?”
“One punch.”
“Fine. Last one, and only because I’m two quarts sloshed to the moon. Three quarts. Maybe four.” River straightened and tensed his abdomen, ready for the hit. “Otherwise, you’d be mouse meat, brother.”
