Page 63 of Shattered King

More voices broke through the noise in my head, then I was jostled, lifted, and we were moving. A door closed, and a second later I was lying on a bed. Hunter’s bed. He lay down beside me and rolled me into him, wrapping his body around me. I breathed in his scent, the now familiar smell of his body wash. He kissed the top of my head. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

I said nothing. I had nothing to say. My mom. My mom was gone. I’d left her, left her with that sick asshole. I’d abandoned her, and now I would never get the chance to make up for that, never get the chance to show her how much I loved her, how sorry I was. If I’d been stronger, if I’d fought harder . . .

I shut down.

I felt it when it happened. The ugliness of my past coiling tight, tighter with every breath I took, until I was about to snap, and my mind just—shut down.

I don’t really know what happened after that. How long I lay there.

It must have been a while. I had snippets, like clips of a movie. People coming and going—Van, Jude, and I think Ruby, too. Hunter feeding me, taking me to the toilet, showering me. Josh’s scent, his small body asleep beside me. The doctor, the one that sewed up my arm, I remembered him coming and talking to me. I don’t know if I talked back, and if I did, what I said.

That brought me to now.

I don’t know what made this time different. But when Hunter came in and lay beside me, like I knew he’d been doing on and off the whole time, the feel of his body against mine, his fingers smoothing back my hair, it penetrated the grief, the feeling of utter hopelessness.

I rolled to my back, stared up into his ruggedly handsome face. “How long?” I whispered.

Relief transformed his expression so blatantly it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

“Three days.”

Three days I’d shut the world out around me. “I’m sorry,” I said.

He cupped my face and ran his thumb across my cheek. “What for?”

“Checking out.”

He leaned in, buried his face against my throat, and stayed there for several long seconds. When he lifted his head, his gaze was heavy, pained. “You scared the shit out of me.” Those bright blue eyes moved over my features. “I felt like I was losing you all over again.”

Tears stung my eyes and I swallowed them back.

“Don’t,” he rasped. “Don’t fucking hold it back. Fuck, baby, you gotta let it out.” He moved his fingers through my hair. “You lost your mom, sweetheart. You gotta let that pain out.”

“I can’t . . .”

He shook his head, silencing me. “You got regrets when it comes to her, but in the end, that shit is useless. It will do nothing but eat you up inside. She loved you, you loved her, and you both knew it. The way she looked at you . . .” He kissed my temple. “Nothing else matters but that, babe. Nothing. You need to let it out.”

I stared up into his eyes, forcing down the boulder in my throat so I could speak. “I’ll break,” I whispered.

“Lulu . . .”

“I’ll break if I let it out.”

His stared into my eyes, heat, warmth, determination, all aimed at me. “You break.” He smoothed his thumb over my lower lip and kissed me just below my eye. “I’ll put you back together. I promise you that.”

Oh God.

That was when the first tear slid down my cheek.

I buried my face against his chest, fists clutching his T-shirt, and let the tears flow. Hunter wrapped me tight in his arms and held me while I fell apart.

* * *

A week had passed since my break down in Hunter’s arms. Though I was still emotional, I was starting to feel human again. It was thanks to not only Hunter, but his friends, and the woman sitting beside me.

“Um . . . Ruby?” I sat on the couch, eyes glued to the TV as background music started to play—all bow-chic-a-wow-wow. I turned to the King Agency’s receptionist sitting beside me, her glass of rum and coke tilted dangerously as she stared at the television, mouth hanging open.

“Yeah.”