“I can’t be in the dark! I can’t… I can’t…” I double over in the rectangle of space between the two bunks, my hands on my knees. “I can’t do this!”
Charlotte’s out of her bed, her dainty hand on my back in the next breath.
Gray’s on my other side, gripping my shoulder with his gentle, meaty hand. “Easy, Arly. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Is it all hitting you now?”
A creak of the top bunk means Cass is sitting up. “I was a wreck the first month. Frankly, I’m surprised you held it together this long.”
It’s not that. Well, it’s not just that.
Gray and Cass speak with loads of compassion. I’m in good company, and I’m about to make a fool of myself and become a burden. It’s panic on top of encroaching humiliation.
Too many suppressed memories hit my senses. It’s the stale inside of a new car mixed with the stink of bleach. Any time I smell bleach even as an adult, it sends me into dry heaves.
I grasp in the dark for either Charlotte or Gray; I don’t care which one. I’m falling, tumbling into an abyss that’s giving me the shakes.
“I can’t do this. Don’t let them take me!” I’m not making any sense, but I don’t care.
I’m not supposed to be in the dark. Sloan knows I’m never to be in the dark. I have a nightlight and a backup nightlight across the room. My lamp is voice-operated and has a battery backup, just in case.
It’s all coming back in a flood. Daddy balked at the label of “post-traumatic stress disorder,” but Sloan took it seriously. Told Daddy I had a right to my own voice.
Still, Daddy rolled his eyes.
Then again, it was Sloan who tracked me for days and finally found me in the decrepit state I’d devolved to after I’d been abducted. He saw me shuddering, incoherent and drooling, laying in a puddle of my own urine in a trunk.
It’s not all glitz and glamor, being the daughter of a crime lord. Every now and then, I’m less of a person and more of a bartering token when Daddy’s rivals get their hands on me.
“Not in the trunk!” Then I scream so loud, all three of my cellmates startle and jump back from me.
Cass takes charge, though she has no idea the nutter she’s dealing with. “Whoa. Let’s sit you down.”
Gray’s voice is steady and velvety, even though I’m scaring everyone. “Here. Head between your knees. You’re hyperventilating.”
Gray and Charlotte sit me on Gray’s mattress. Charlotte rubs slow circles across my spine, but still I worry I’m being taken where I don’t want to go.
Bound and scared, I remember each jostle of my body as the car jerks around too many corners. The bag over my head stinks like vomit, and I can’t see a thing.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” I wheeze, begging these friendly strangers to right all the wrongs in the world, even the ones that can’t be undone. “Not in the trunk!”
Cass jumps down from her bed, and I’m pretty sure she’s crouched in front of me. Her hands touch on my temples, and then she does something so strange, it rips me from the stink of bleach and stuffy car and puts me back solidly in Prigham’s Penitentiary.
Cass begins to sing to me.
“Over the moon and past the stars
The day and night aren’t theirs, they’re ours.
When the world feels cold and wrong
I’ll fix it all with love and a song.”
No one moves. I’m sure they’ve all stopped breathing, stunned at Cass’ sweetness.
“Again,” Gray urges as my wheezing slows. He holds my hand, his palm hot against my icy fingers. I’ve been cold since I first set foot in this place.
Cass whisper-sings the song a second time. When she finishes, she massages my temples with her thumbs, centering me with her touch. “This isn’t about getting sent here, is it.” When she presses her forehead to mine, I miss Sloan with every fiber of my being. “What did they do to you?”
I can’t work out the whole story. Only fragments birth out of me as I do what I can to steady my breaths. “Trunk. Stuffed in the trunk. Ransom. Hood over my head. Can’t see… Can’t see…”
7
The Shifter’s Bed
Cass, crouched in front of me, exhales a string of curse words that would do Uncle Antoni proud as I tilt forward off the bunk, losing hold of my balance. Cass grips my biceps to steady my swaying body. “Whoa! I’ve got you, Arly.”
“Trunk. Get me out of the trunk!” My pathetic scream hurts my ears, but I can’t temper my terror. Memories I’ve given up trying to repress over the years come at me quicker than I can bat them away.
Cass catches me in her arms, holding me as steady as she can while the world rocks me, bashing me in its unforgiving waves.
My new friend’s grip tightens around my torso. “Jeez. I guess princess life isn’t as dazzling as they make it sound on television. I was hoping it was all wearing stilettos and having a bodyguard.”
I want to chuckle, but I can’t feel my lips.
Cass’ voice is a forced calm that finds me in the dark. “Charlotte, do your meditation for peace. It always calms me down.”
Whether or not Charlotte’s doing anything, I can’t tell. She’s mute and the room is pitch black.
It’s Gray who infuses a note of control to my chaos. “Close your eyes, Arly.”
“I can’t see!” I protest.
“Sure, but if you close your eyes, the darkness is your choice. It’s not something being done to you that you can’t control. Close your eyes and take it back. Make it yours, not theirs.”
He’s not making enough sense for me to glom on to his instructions. “What?”
The silk of his voice is distracting. Silk doesn’t exist in the trunk, yet there it is, infiltrating the bleach and the terror. “Make the darkness yours, not theirs,” he repeats, holding tight to my hand.
I don’t know if he’s full of crap, but at this point, I’ll try anything. My lashes sweep shut, and just like that, the darkness is mine. My dread is still there, but it’s lifting by a hefty ten percent, which helps my breathing even out.
“There you go. Just like that.”
Once the darkness is my choice, my tongue does whatever it feels like. “If you all are being nice to me because you think my family can do you favors, I’ll pass.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Everything about me is wrong. I don’t belong here.
Then again, none of us do.
I hear the soft ripple of Charlotte’s airy giggle.
Cass responds with a wry, “Oh, rats. No favors from the mafia? Well, I’m out. You’re on your own, Arly.” I can picture her head hanging and her straight, inky hair dipping forward as she shakes with silent laughter. “We’re helping you because we aren’t the bloody scum who want to see you thrown in prison. We’re decent people, and if you’d stop being afraid, you’d see that. It’s not so bad in here, once you get the hang of it.”
“It’s worse for shifters,” Gray shudders.
Cass hands him a snide, “You can’t possibly know that.”
Gray’s voice holds a gravity to it that stills any arguments I might have. There’s a luxurious timbre that’s simultaneously soothing and strengthening. “These magic-stopping cuffs are horrible. When shifters are under extreme duress, we can turn into our animal. Something about the way an animal processes pain makes it duller, less in your face. But I can’t shift in here. My wolf is tethered in my chest, clawing to get out, but he can’t. So I have to deal with my pain, sure, but I also have to deal with his.” I can hear the rustle of his hand rubbing his pectorals over his white tank top. The sound makes me unbearably sad for him.
Focusing on his pain is a welcome distraction from my own. Suddenly, I realize I’m holding his hand to comfort him, instead of him holding mine to calm me.
I cast around in the blackness, my body turning so my other hand can rest on his thigh. I don’t know much about him, but I do know the horror it is to be trapped. I feel for his wol
f, because my poor Everly Ann doesn’t understand why I’m gone. My pup is probably whining for me, crying that her mommy is gone. His poor wolf is no doubt just as confused.
I may not understand shifters, but I understand animals.
Gray’s arm bands around my back, his hand tightening on my shoulder. I’m not sure he’s even aware he’s doing it. I take a chance and lean into his body’s warmth. He’s incredibly cozy, and I wonder if that’s a shifter thing. I’ve heard they run hot, but I always assumed that was a comment tethered to their tempers. But cuddling into Gray’s side is like snuggling up to melting chocolate. My insides are warm and gooey, practically purring for more.
Get ahold of yourself, Arly.
If Gray minds my closeness, he doesn’t show it. In fact, after a few beats, he presses his cheek to my temple. When he speaks, I can feel his mouth moving. “Then there’s this. The closeness. Back at home, the pack sleeps together. All of us. There’s always hugs and goofy shoving. Here, I’m the only shifter. No one touches me. Hollowed out my insides the first month.”
His fingers twine through mine atop his thigh. It’s not romantic, or maybe it is. I have no rubric with which to measure stuff like that. Daddy kept me fairly well locked away from most of the boys who were brave enough to come calling. But holding Gray’s hand doesn’t strike me as either of us making a move on the other; it’s pure survival. It’s the first breath after a slow suffocation.
I want to laugh at my brain. A fae making a move on a shifter? That’s ridiculous. I guess I really am turned around in here.
Cass’ cadence breaks up the sweetness that’s settled in the air. “Oh, fine. Shifters have it worse. You win.”
“Your breathing’s evened out,” Gray comments, squeezing my shoulder. His lips move against my temple, the soft pillows lulling another ten percent of my anxiety to rest. His heated breath coaxes my nerves to let go of the stranglehold they’ve got on me.
My spine relaxes, allowing my body to sag against his.
He doesn’t stiffen or push me away.
He breathes.
And finally, so do I.
The cinnamon sweetness of his skin chases away the last remnants of the bleach.
His voice is low and even. “Do you want help getting up top, or do you want to sleep down here with me?”
The offer is strange to get from this man I barely know, but I don’t care. Shifter or not, it’s exactly what I need. A Sloan band-aid to get me through this awful mess my life has become. “Do you mind if I stay here? Just for tonight?”
“As many nights as you need. Like I said, I don’t like sleeping alone. It’d be a relief to feel like I’m back in the pack again.”
Charlotte kisses my cheek, stinging my heart with her tenderness. She meets my humiliating weakness with sweetness, which seems to be her way.
Cass tugs on a lock of my damp hair, which I think either means “It’ll be okay” or “I tolerate your existence.” Either way, I’ll take it.
Cass grabs my pillow off the top bunk and slides it next to Gray’s, then spreads out my blanket atop his.
Gray is careful with my fragile state, not taking his hand from my shoulder as he guides me to lie down between his body and the wall.
I expect him to claim a spot nearer to his edge, but his shifter nature leads him to cuddle in close, which is exactly what I’m too prideful to ask for. I want something to tie me to the earth, or I’m afraid I’ll drift in the darkness, lost forever.
I know it’s not me he’s after; it’s the closeness of another person from his pack. And it’s not him I’m after; it’s protection from the scarier recesses of my memories.
I turn toward him, my hand resting atop his chest. I should be wary of touching him, but I’m just turned around enough to gravitate toward this new entanglement. “Thank you,” I whisper, my eyes still closed.
He tugs both blankets over us, his arm winding under my neck so he can rock me closer still. “More. If you’re holding back, you don’t have to. The more contact, the better.”
And the thing is, I do want more. I want to wrap my entire body around this beacon of safety. He’s keeping me from the stink of bleach and the chilling void of the trunk.
My leg twines tentatively over his thigh, and he sighs contentedly. “Just like that. Hang on, Arly. Daylight’s not so far away.”
I take his advice literally and bunch my fist in his tank top. It’s all the hope I have in my heart that anything anchors me, so I can get through this without losing myself or my sanity.
I wonder if he, too, has been drifting in the dark his entire time at Prigham’s, unaccustomed to sleeping alone. Suddenly, it’s not just my madness I’m swept away from; it’s his, as well. I never would’ve guessed he’s listless here; he seems so centered and unaffected. I take my role as his comforter seriously and connect my body to his in every way I can manage.
I love the way his spine relaxes, and his exhales deepen. Each touch lulls him away from his restlessness, in the same way his touch keeps me away from the trunk I fear.
We hold on to each other in the black void, and somehow, we stop drifting and start breathing.
My head rests partway on his chest and partway on the pillow. I’m not sure if it’s my pillow or his. Boundaries like that hardly matter, looped together as we are.
Our breathing starts to sync up, and finally, the stuttering of my insides begins to calm.
I’ll be his pack if he’ll be my nightlight.
8
Lovely Shifter
The sun doesn’t wake me, since there’s no window in our cinderblock cell. It’s Gray’s fingers sifting through my hair that rouse me. I stretch against him, inhaling a deep drag of his skin, which has the faintest hint of cinnamon to it, mixed with something baser. I can’t get enough of it.
Mm. Lovely.
“Thank you,” Gray chuckles. “Never been called ‘lovely’ before.”
I freeze, my eyes flying open. “Did I say that out loud? Oh, pretend you didn’t hear me.”
His quiet rumble of a laugh moves my hand, which I’m not ready to take off of his chest. He’s so very warm, like a hot water bottle on a cold day. “Never heard a thing. Not even the little cooing noises you make in your sleep. I thought a bird got in here halfway through the night.”
I bury my face in the crook of his neck, and his body goes rigid in response, his pulse quickening. I can’t help myself. I was so cold yesterday, so isolated. Now I’m addicted to the warmth, and I’m not ready to give it up any time soon. “I didn’t mean to keep you up.”
He relaxes, and brings his arm across his body so he can drag his fingers up my forearm and cup my elbow. “Are you kidding? Best night of sleep I’ve had since I got sent here. You go ahead and be afraid of the dark for as long as you need, if it means we can repeat that every night. Made being here bearable for once.”
I take a chance and pull my face from his neck so I can study the outline of his features. The hallway light is slipping under the doorway finally, giving just enough illumination to show off the angular line of his wider jaw, the half-inch of facial hair growth, and the plump outline of his lips.
There are the two bumps covering his fangs, but for some reason, they’re not as frightening this morning.
It’s an effort to pry my focus from his lips to his eyes, and I can’t understand why. Sure, he’s handsome, but he’s a shifter. I’m fae. He’s not attracted to me, and I couldn’t possibly be…
Gray stretches, his hand sliding along my back in a way that makes me arch against him.
Spinal reaction does not equal attraction. Get ahold of yourself, Arly.
Jeez, I’m so pathetic. A man is nice to me, and that’s all it takes for me to get all hot for him.
I need to pry myself from his side.
In a minute.
We lay there for a solid twenty minutes, with him stroking my hair, and me drawing slow circular designs on his chest. I know when we step out of the bed, life will
be different, but for now, everything inside of me is calm. Connected. I don’t have to steel myself or force bravery. I’m not distraught, either. I want to ask him again if he’s sure he doesn’t mind sharing his space with me, but honestly, it would break my heart if he did.
“Your cousin seemed upset yesterday at visitation,” I comment.
Gray’s silent chuckle vibrates his chest. “Yeah. Deytant is a little high strung.”
“That sounds like the opposite of you.”
His large hand palms my back. “Keep giving me good nights like this, and I can’t imagine anything ruffling me ever again.”
I snuggle into him, this stranger I trust based solely on instinct.
Gray stares up at the underside of the bunk, and I can tell he’s miring himself in his thoughts. “Never saw much of a point in getting worked up about rubbish I can’t control. When my mum died a few years back, things stopped hitting me so hard. Like my insides went on mute or something. Plus, being a shifter means people assume you’re dangerous. It’s different for fae. If you get upset, it’s a normal thing and people respond like it’s okay to have frustrations on occasion. If a shifter gets mad?” He shakes his head. “Especially one as big as me—it’s seen as dangerous. So I’ve learned not to let life affect me all that much. Not worth it.” His hand trills up and down the back of my hip. “I was at a bar once, minding my own business after a long day of work, and two fae started a fist fight. They tumbled into me, and I must’ve had some facial reaction to them spilling my beer, because when the cops showed up, I got arrested with them. Nobody saw that I didn’t do a thing; they only saw a scary shifter.”
My fingers brush over his chest, doing what I can to calm the ache I know must still be there. “That’s horrible!”
He shrugs. “I learned early on that getting upset gets me nowhere. My wolf feels all the things. It’s my job to keep the peace so he can breathe a little without destroying everything.”
A few beats of silence settle while I mull over his conundrum. “I think we need to give you a safe space.” I motion to the bunk. “Maybe this is it. The spot where I promise not to be afraid of you if your face frowns, and you promise to consider that it’s okay to have ups and downs.”
Sins of the Father: A Paranormal Prison Romance (Sinfully Sacrified Book 1) Page 6
