Page 38 of Shattered King

“You’re killing me here, Lulu.” His other hand slid under my chin, and he tipped my face back gently, making me look at him. With his other hand, he brushed my hair away from my face.

Oh God.

He was back. My Hunter.

“I know,” he rasped. “Baby, I know.”

My eyes stung. At his words, they filled and overflowed, tears running down my cheeks. I shook my head again. “You don’t.”

“I do.”

He thought he did, but he didn’t. I remembered now, what I’d told him when he found me, but I hadn’t told him all of it. “It’s too late,” I whispered.

He gripped my chin between his thumb and finger, blue eyes locked on me, and shook his head. “It’s not. I won’t let it.” Then he leaned in and brushed his lips over mine, so gentle it was just a whisper of a touch, but he lingered, our breath mingling.

I blamed the pain medication they must have given me for my sluggish reactions, and why it took me a few seconds to wake the hell up and put a stop to it. “Please don’t,” I groaned.

“I fucked up, Lulu. I know I fucked up,” he said against my lips.

I pulled back and winced, pain throbbing through my skull. “You were going to hand me over for money. You were just going to give me to a man who has lived the majority of his life doing the shit he does, and you weren’t going to look back.” It hurt to speak, everywhere hurt, but I had to get it out. “You know why I did what I did. And I’m glad you do. I wanted to tell you every day for the last three years. But I don’t know you, not anymore. And you don’t know me.”

His hand squeezed mine. “You were bait.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Bait. I was never gonna hand you over. Once I drew Pierce out, I was cutting you free. But you freaked out, and I lost control of the situation.” He was breathing heavily. I could tell he was trying to rein his emotions in. “But, baby, I was never gonna to hand you over to that fucker.”

I shook my head again, not wanting to hear it, not wanting to believe it. Believing it made everything harder, more complicated. “No. No, you were going to . . .” He kept talking right over me.

“Now I know why you did what you did. And, Lulu, I’m not cutting you lose.” His eyes shone with a fierceness that made my heart flip around in my chest. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

No. I didn’t. Not at all. Did he think we could just brush three years of resentment and anger under the carpet and move on? I didn’t know if I could do that. I knew he couldn’t. No matter what he thought now. Yes, I loved him. I always would. But I realized, when we pulled up outside that abandoned lot and saw Pierce’s man there to take me away, how goddamn angry I was, about all of it.

I bit my lip and winced, tasting blood. Hunter growled like a slightly crazed, highly pissed-off wild animal.

“Fuck,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “I’m gonna find that fucker and end him. I promise you that.”

I shivered, all the warmth draining from me, along with what little energy I had left. He wasn’t the Hunter I once knew. He was a hell of a lot more dangerous. I didn’t know how he made his money. Aunt Sara said they were P.I.’s, but I didn’t know if that was true or not. What I did know was they carried weapons, had ways of contacting criminals like Pierce. And whether I was bait or not, they had obviously been in similar situations before. Scary, dangerous situations that could end with people losing their lives.

Hunter came from the world I wanted to escape. Had been in that world his whole life. He’d worked for Pierce once, had crossed that line. Maybe he was one of the good guys, maybe he’d left that part of his life behind. I didn’t know for sure, but he was still in that world. I didn’t want that for me, and I didn’t want that for my son. “I can’t deal with this.”

“You don’t have to deal. I’m gonna deal for both of us.”

I didn’t want to talk about us either. “I stuck a pen in his cheek,” I blurted. I don’t know where it came from, or why I said it. It just kind of poured out of me, like I was purging it. I had no room inside me for it. I had too many nightmares already; I didn’t need this as well.

Hunter was silent several beats. “What did you say?”

“Pierce, he had me on the floor, he’d pulled off my tights. I had his pen. I hid it. I grabbed his hair, held him steady, and shoved it in his face,” I shuddered. “That’s how I got away. I shoved a pen in his face.” The more I said it, the more I started to freak out. I started to breathe erratically, panic making it hard to draw a deep enough breath. “I wasn’t going to let him rape me. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.”

Not again. Never again. The words thundered through my head, and for a moment I worried I’d screamed them out loud.

Hunter exhaled roughly. “Thank fuck,” he rasped, hand tightening around mine. “Thank fuck, baby . . . I thought . . .” He ran his thumb over my cheek. “You did good. You did real good.”

It was too much, having him here, treating me like I mattered, like nothing had happened. There were questions behind his eyes, about Pierce, about what happened, questions I wasn’t ready to answer. “Let go,” I whispered. I tried to shove him away, but my arms felt like spaghetti.

He ignored my pitiful attempts to push him away, those big, warm hands moving over me, giving me comfort. And it was working. It felt good, so damn good. That just made me freak out more. I didn’t want his comfort. I couldn’t afford to believe in him. “Let me go,” I said again.

“Lulu . . .”