True Refuge

by Annabelle McInnes

  ‘Lightening? That’s not lightening sweetheart,’ Euan said, holding her down, his eyes scanning for the Glock he’d placed on the kitchen bench earlier in the day.

  ‘It is,’ she grumbled in annoyance. ‘It interferes with the monitoring system. Electrical shockwaves or something. Will couldn’t fix it while he was still alive. And I have no hope of fixing it.’

  Euan’s tone was urgent.

  ‘Nick?’ Nick separated himself from the pile of bodies on the floor. He held Euan’s uneasy gaze for a heartbeat before he quickly rose and jogged to the small surveillance room.

  Kira fidgeted beneath him but Euan wasn’t moving until he was sure he understood the threat.

  Tense moment passed until Nick’s voice echoed down the hall. ‘She’s right,’ he called out to them. ‘Just interference.’

  The crackling stopped, leaving a weighted silence in its wake. Nick’s trouble-free expression when he emerged though the mouth of the hall eased some of Euan’s anxiety.

  The young man fell noisily back into the couch, Uno cards scattering around him. ‘It’s raining too. You can see it. One of the cameras is even out.’

  Euan frowned, his instincts surging. ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s happened once before.’ Kira huffed when she managed to pull herself out from under Euan’s body. She sluggishly climbed over Nick’s reclined frame, draping her lean arms across his exposed torso. She turned her mischievous crystal-blue eyes to Nick’s, blonde eyelashes fluttering. ‘I can show you where it’s hidden if you like?’

  Nick’s easy smile was equally flirtatious. ‘Can you now? Have any other secrets, Pixie Pie?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she teased.

  Nick’s answering roguish chuckle and devastating grin scattered the lingering doubt that hung in the room.

  But Euan wasn’t convinced. He left the two of them to their playful flirtations and got up to see the issue for himself. When he reached their surveillance system, hidden in a small recess within one of the larger storage room, he studied the monitor.

  Nick had told the truth. Water droplets dribbled down the remaining operable lens, the screen intermittently flashing white as lightening lit the surrounding trees.

  The second camera feed was black, a blank screen where a picture of the driveway should have been visible. It seemed as though it was an innocent technical glitch, but he was still unnerved by it occurrence.

  Despite his reservations, Nick and Kira’s unfettered laughter brought him back into the living room. He found them tangled in an embrace, their gazes locked, their breath laboured.

  Euan watched as Nick slowly dipped his head and pressed his lips to Kira’s in a soft, gentle kiss. Her eyes fluttered closed, her eyelashes fanning out over her pink cheeks and her hands clasped into little tight fists at Nick’s chest.

  Euan waited for the snarling beast of jealousy to raise its head, to bite into his resolve in his decision to build on the hunger that was growing between the three of them. His body tensed in anticipation of the onslaught. But it never came, and he found instead a deep, delicious desire that matured in strength as he witnessed their kiss deepening.

  The kiss was delicate, an enticing play of innocent cravings. All thoughts of the earlier threat were eradicated from Euan’s mind. They were beautiful to watch: Nick’s tongue darting in and out of Kira’s mouth, her shy answering movements, the quickening of their breaths, the sweetness of their visible relish as they discovered the unexplored desire for one another. Euan couldn’t help the grin that leisurely eased across his face.

  Nick was the first to pull himself from the lush onslaught of Kira’s lips and tip his chin up to meet Euan’s gaze, a tranquil smile playing around the corners of his lips.

  But the dark shadows that still lingered in Nick’s eyes had Euan holding himself back from joining them, or helping them to take the situation further. Euan’s smile faded, and the steel band around his chest constricted unexpectedly.

  ‘Bed time?’ he asked, holding Nick’s gaze.

  Nick broke the connection between them to brush his nose against Kira’s and wrap his arms tightly around her in one final embrace before he let go and nodded.

  Kira looked to Euan, confused, and he shook his head in response. Not tonight then. Nick was healing, growing stronger within himself every day, but those internal demons were still chewing on his soul.

  Euan pressed a chaste kiss to both their temples as they passed him when they headed towards the bedroom. Kira’s eyes were bright and Nick’s shoulders were slumped. Something had to change; he only hoped it would come soon.

  ***

  Euan pitched vertically from his sleep as though he’d been catapulted off a mountain. An anguished male cry bounced off the steel walls like fist-sized stones shattering glass. There was grunting and thrashing, then a tortured wail so grievous that his heart felt as though it were being torn in two.

  A feminine squeal and a sharp intake of breath, signifying non-verbalised pain, shortly followed.

  In the second it had taken Euan to open his eyes, he had already thrown back the bedding, shoved his hand under the mattress and extracted the Glock he’d hidden there. He pointed the barrel of the weapon in the direction of the noise before flicking the light switch to confront their attacker.

  As cool LED light flooded the room, his blood turned to ice in his veins, seizing every muscle, tendon and sinew. His finger flinched on the trigger and his heart thrummed in his chest.

  The scene before him would be burned in his memory for eternity.

  Nick had Kira pinned to the bed, his knees trapping her hips, his hands clasped around her throat. His green eyes were wild and unseeing, his burnished gold hair a dense mass of feral waves.

  He’d had another nightmare.

  Kira was immobile under the weight of Nick’s larger body. Her muscles were rigid, held taut under Nick’s demands. She was terrified as she clawed at him in an attempt to escape, her eyes wide and frightened.

  Euan put down the gun on the displaced bedding and slowly reached out, just as Nick turned to him in shocked stupour.

  He blinked, once, twice, three times before shifting his dazed eyes from Euan’s outstretched hand to his concerned face.

  ‘Euan?’ His voice was rough from sleep, but slowly, his eyes lost their glazed shine.

  ‘You had a nightmare, kid,’ Euan told him, keeping his voice low and unthreatening.

  Euan was acutely aware of Kira’s prone state. She had yet to take a breath, her cheeks were turning crimson and the hands that were now clasped around Nick’s wrists were beginning to tremble.

  Nick blinked at Euan again. ‘A nightmare?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yeah,’ Euan replied. ‘And I need you to take your hands off Kira now. Nice and easy. You’re all right. She’s all right. But just nice and slow.’

  He watched as Nick swung his head down towards the woman suffering by his hand and witnessed the horrific moment he realised what had happened. His face turned ashen and his body heaved from the force of his remorse. But even overwhelmed with the sudden realisation that he had the capacity to terrorise, Nick knew to heed Euan’s words. He let his hands loosen slowly before scrambling back on the bedding until he was completely free from overpowering Kira.

  She took a noisy inhalation of breath followed by a series of concerning coughs. Even as she gasped for much-needed oxygen, she still reached out with one shaking hand to try and comfort a distraught Nick.

  He pulled away from Kira’s touch as though her hand were a viper, poised to strike. He knifed off the bed and tried to plow through Euan to escape through the only exit.

  But Euan was ready for him. He caught him as he struggled to pass and pulled his violently shaking lean frame into a tight embrace.

  ‘Fuck you!’ Nick cried, thrashing against Euan’s vice-like hold. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Not a chance,’ he growled, tightening his grip by surrounding Nick’s shoulders, holding the man immobile against his chest.r />
  Nick twisted and turned, bit and swung, yelled and swore. In an effort to reduce the carnage to his own body, in one swift move Euan turned Nick until his chest was against the cool steel wall. He pressed his larger frame behind him to encase his rage in safety.

  In front of them Nick shattered, his anger so violent that Euan was eventually forced to shackle his wrists against the wall in an effort to stop him from hurting himself.

  It was traumatic to witness. Nick’s despair was profound. Euan held fast as Nick’s soul blew apart and fragmented in a million sharp pieces as though a bomb had combusted inside his chest. He could do nothing in that moment to stop the torment, forced to wait until Nick’s body lost its power. But akin to any cornered animal, his energy was overwhelming. Euan had broken into a sweat, his breathing laboured, until finally only wracking cries of anguish filled the small room.

  Euan clasped Nick’s hands in his own and brought them around to the man’s chest so he was held in an unyielding embrace.

  ‘Let me go,’ Nick wailed, his voice hoarse, his lips trembling.

  ‘I’m not letting you go,’ Euan pledged, holding back his own pain. ‘But you need to talk to me. Tell me what happened, what they did to you. It will make these nightmares go away, I swear.’

  He felt his own throat burn. How could he win the fight if he didn’t know what beast he was battling? Did he need a sword? Shield? Gun? Rocket launcher? Fucking nuclear bomb? He felt so fucking powerless.

  ‘I can’t!’ Nick’s cry tore from the depths of his soul, so agonising that Euan found the backs of his eyes sting.

  ‘I’m so sorry Nicky,’ Euan’s voice broke. ‘I’m so damn sorry. I should have been there. I should have never left. I’m sorry for everything. Please, Nicky, just tell me. Nothing they did or said can be any worse than this.’

  It was then that Euan felt a tiny hand on the sensitive skin of his upper tricep. When he looked to the right, Kira’s glistening blue eyes reminded him of a kaleidoscope of colour. Even if every facet were blue, he would not feel cheated by drowning in their depths.

  Her face had lost the mauve hue that had stained her translucent skin; now she looked as pale and sad as a ghost, damned to walk the earth alone for eternity.

  Euan could say nothing against the pain of that sight, and so remained mute as she reached out to touch Nick’s wet cheek.

  Euan’s hold was still uncompromising, so the only ability way could to let them know his wishes was to speak.

  ‘Stop,’ he demanded. ‘Don’t.’

  Kira did as she was asked, seeing, as Euan did, that her touch would unravel the final thread holding Nick together.

  She turned that beautiful face to Euan, her distress the feminine mirror to Nick’s desolation.

  Kira took a deep breath and held his gaze. ‘Tell him,’ she ordered.

  Euan blinked.

  She squeezed his upper arm and moved her tiny body closer, the warmth of her skin radiating through her worn yellow nightgown. ‘Tell him, Euan. Tell Nick how you feel. I think it’s what he needs to hear from you,’ she explained, her eyes beseeching.

  He turned to Nick, whose face was still awash with internal pain, muscles locked tight as though ready to fight. ‘Nicky?’

  Nick shook his head with a quick, violent jerk.

  ‘Is that what you need from me?’ he asked.

  Nick’s naked chest was rising and falling in deep, fierce breaths. Though his eyes were tightly closed and hidden from Euan’s scrutiny, every other cell in his body was screaming, demanding something Euan knew he should have given Nick the moment he’d found him on the dirty wooden floor, the moment he’d confronted Euan and practically demanded it from him in that dilapidated farmhouse.

  No, the reality was, he should have told Nick the second he’d fucking felt it when he’d seen Nick fighting off his attackers in that refugee camp.

  Christ, how could he not see it?

  ‘Let me go, Euan. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore, not after tonight. Nothing matters anymore,’ Nick whispered.

  ‘Look at me,’ he demanded.

  When Nick turned his head away, Euan lost all resemblance to a rational man. The inferno inside his belly began to rage, growing until it enveloped every facet of his internal self.

  ‘Look at me!’ he roared, making both Nick and Kira flinch with the power of his voice.

  Euan let go of Nick’s wrists and cupped the man’s strong square jaw, clenched so hard the muscles in his cheeks were like granite. His jade eyes were glistening, and as his corded throat worked to swallow his despair, Euan told him what he’d kept sacred in his heart.

  ‘You hold my fucking soul, Nick. Do you understand that? In the palm of those clever hands, you cradle everything that is me. My heart, my mind, my body. You’re everything to me. I’d kill for you, die for you. Get me?’

  Nick searched Euan’s face, blinking erratically.

  ‘I don’t understand …’ he whispered in disbelief.

  Euan’s brow creased and his lips firmed, but his voice was gentle when he spoke again. ‘Of course you do. I love you. More than my own damn life.’

  Nick couldn’t help the sob that escaped his dry lips. Euan watched as one glistening tear trailed down his pale cheek.

  ‘You love me?’ Nick’s voice broke.

  Euan’s dark brows pulled tighter towards one another, the crease between them deepening. ‘Since the moment I saw you.’

  Against Euan’s chest, Nick shuddered, his whole body vibrating with ferocity. The tidal wave of emotion was bearing down upon the unsuspecting shore. Euan let go of Nick’s face and enveloped the love of his life into his protective and uncompromising embrace. His arms encased his upper torso as he threaded one hand into Nick’s wild locks, encouraging him to bury his head into the crook created between his shoulder and throat. As Nick let the wracking sobs free, Euan absorbed the devastating sorrow into the marrow of his bones.

  Nick heaved and wailed from the grief of both the memories of his torture as well as his relief at Euan’s feelings for him, which overwhelmed his comprehension. He lifted his arms and banded them around Euan’s waist with a ferocity that surprised Euan with its strength.

  No man was immune to the cascade of excess emotion that Nick purged from his soul. As Euan held the shuddering young man as close to his heart as his physical body would allow, he found his own relief, elation, fear and terror of all that had happened since the attack start to overwhelm him.

  He swallowed audibly. His throat was thick, his eyes burned, his hands trembled. He buried his face into the clean blonde waves that smelled of happiness, breathing through the searing flame of emotion that rammed the gate to his heart.

  It could have been moments, could have been hours. Euan lost track of time as he listened while Nick eradicated the shame, humiliation and guilt that had imbedded itself in his core. But slowly, Euan realised Nick was trying to talk between his sobs.

  ‘They said—’ Nick hitched.

  He threaded his fingers through Nick’s hair, the filaments catching on his callouses. He kissed Nick’s slick brow and braced for what was to come.

  ‘They said?’ he prompted on a whisper.

  Euan didn’t think it was possible, but Nick’s arms tightened around his waist, his fingernails digging into the bare skin of his back in a stinging reminder that it was possible he could feel more pain.

  ‘They said … that the only reason you had me around was because I could take your cock. They said pretty boys like me reminded men like you what it was like to fuck a woman.’

  Sadistic fuckers. It was not unexpected, but those lies still made the bile in Euan’s tumultuous stomach bubble.

  ‘They thought I have you because you’re pretty and you remind me of fucking a woman?’ he asked incredulously.

  Nick was silent.

  ‘Christ,’ he swore. ‘You believed that shit?’

  Nick buried himself closer. Euan felt the strength in his limbs, the courage, the determ
ination, but also the fragility, the vulnerability. His silence again told Euan exactly what he believed. But he would not have that uncertainty ever impede on their relationship again. He wasn’t the type of man to profess his love openly every day, but for Nick, he’d do whatever he needed to make him happy. But first, he needed to understand the full picture of destruction.

  ‘This what’s been running around in your head this whole time? That I don’t care for you, just your ass?’ he asked, pulling at Nick’s hair with not-so-subtle intentions.

  Nick turned his head, regardless of the pain it caused his scalp to avoid gaze, and Euan felt another emotion among the sensations that were jockeying for first place. Annoyance, he was finding, was harder to squash than fear. ‘I won’t lie to you, Nick. Love your ass. Miss it. Can’t wait to have it back. But fuck, you think that’s the only reason I would want you?’

  Euan looked at Nick’s twisted features and another realisation hit him in the chest, stealing his breath. ‘This is why you wanted those words from me back at the farmhouse, isn’t it?’

  Nick swallowed, his features twisting in long-suffering pain.

  ‘Nicky …’ Euan bent his head down and pressed his slick forehead to Nick’s. ‘I felt it then, I should have given it to you. I should have given you what you needed. I’m sorry.’

  Nick’s breath hitched and Euan pulled him back into the crook of his shoulder.

  Euan turned to the right and was once again hammered by a barrage of emotion.

  Kira stood in her pale nightgown. Her hands were clasped tightly at her chest, those gorgeous eyes that Euan wished never to see in pain were filled to the brim with yearning. She had endured every shudder, every wail of anguish, every tortured tear that rolled down Nick’s cheeks along with him. Her own face was wet from the outpouring of her sympathy for Nick, and although Euan didn’t think he could sustain further scars to his heart, as he caught her despairing gaze, he found out he was wrong.

  He watched her swallow. Bite her lip. Blink slowly and frown from the effort she put into holding her emotion back.

  Euan disengaged one arm from around Nick and reached out to her, and she eagerly stepped into his embrace as though his hold would nourish her soul.