ON THE MOUNTAIN

By
Riley Hart

Copyright © 2024 by Riley Hart

Kindle Edition

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

Published by:

Riley Hart

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All products/brand names/trademarks mentioned are registered trademarks of their respective holders/companies.

Cover Photographer: Wander Aguiar

Cover Design: Sleepy Fox Studio

Edited by Keren Reed Editing

Proofread by Judy’s Proofreading and Lyrical Lines Proofreading

One feels he’s not worthy of love. The other fears he doesn’t know how. But the sizzling chemistry between them has both tempted to explore the unknown.

Cyrus

I was intrigued by Crow at first glance. Who wouldn’t be? He’s a mountain of a man, who was raised in a cult and now lives secluded in the wilderness. But the draw I feel to him goes beyond mild interest. When his intense gaze falls my way, it feels like he can see into my soul, to my deepest yearnings and desires.

I took a bold chance venturing to his mountain uninvited. But I can’t help myself. Despite Crow’s dangerous facade, I feel at home when I’m near him. I’ve never felt wanted or needed…until the mountain man took me in his arms.

Crow

The mountain is my home, the only place that truly suits me. I reveled in my solitude…until Cyrus showed up looking as lonely as I felt. The warmth in his gaze made me welcome someone into my home and my heart when I never have before.

The way he smells. The way he feels. I come apart with his every touch. The past haunts us both. Yet when we’re together, the weight of it is manageable. Cyrus is mine, and I don’t ever want to let him go. Still, I fear that eventually he’ll want to leave the mountain, and for the first time in my life, I don’t want to be alone.

On the Mountain deals with depictions of mental illness, past substance abuse, an MC who was raised in a cult, childhood abuse/neglect and trauma. For a full list of warnings, please use the look-inside feature to read the content warning at the beginning of the book.

Content Warning:

MC recovering from drug addiction.

Discussion of overdose and losing a loved one to an overdose.

Depictions of depression and discussion of mental illness.

MC who was raised in a cult, discussion of cult life.

Discussion and memories of child abuse/neglect.

Trauma, physical violence, sexual abuse referenced.

Discussion of a murdered parent.

Thank you to Jill, LMSW for your sensitivity read.

Dear Reader,

Every once in a while, an idea grabs me and refuses to let go. This was one of those times. This book is different for me, but if you’ve been reading me for a while, I think you know that sometimes I need something a little different. It continues to feed my muse and keep me on my toes.

While this book deals with heavy topics, I don’t feel like it’s heavy-handed in delivery. At its core, On the Mountain is a love story, like I always write. It’s a love story between Crow and Cyrus, and also a love story between the men and themselves, learning that they are worthy of love, that they are good, and with a little work, they can heal, that they deserve to heal. I hope it fills you with hope.

Some of the topics in this book are personal to me in my life. I’d like to ask you to remember that we’re human and therefore we’re all different. Mental illness doesn’t always present the exact same way in everyone. How we deal with trauma isn’t always the same, and our response to dealing with substance abuse isn’t always the same.

This is Cyrus and Crow’s story, and while others might have done things in a slightly different way, this is absolutely right for them. I feel so honored that I got to be the one to tell their story.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

About the Book

Content Warning

Dear Reader

Before

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Epilogue

Other Books by Riley Hart

About the Author

BEFORE

Crow

Seventeen years old

“He’s fighting, doesn’t socialize, and scares the other children. Quite frankly, he frightens the adults too,” the woman said to my caseworker. I didn’t like this woman. She was on the mountain when they stole me from my home. She’d watched as they’d restrained me, told me to calm down or they would have to sedate me. I’d made my wrists bleed fighting against the restraints before she had instructed them to put the needle in my arm, making me pass out.

I growled thinking about it, looking up through my hair at another woman, who sat at her desk. She shifted uncomfortably under my stare.

“If they’re scared, how do you think he feels?” my caseworker asked. They were inside a room talking, with me outside of it in a chair, as if I couldn’t hear them. “He wasn’t raised with any other children, didn’t attend school, and spent his first sixteen years living on a mountain, secluded from anyone other than the same seventy-five-ish people. He was raised to believe life outside of The Enlightened was wrong and dangerous, that people would attack him for his beliefs. Then his dad kills his mom and tries to do the same to him, and he’s thrust into a world he doesn’t understand. If anyone is scared, it’s him. He’s a child.”

Chosen—my father—had been right telling us the outside world wouldn’t understand us. People did tell me everything I knew was wrong, and now they were talking about being afraid of me and where to take me, all without my consent.

“He’s seventeen,” the first woman responded. “He should know better.”

My heart sped up, hands fisting tighter and tighter. It smelled weird here, like perfumes and cleaners but somehow dirty too. It made my nose burn, but that was nothing compared to how I always felt trapped here, like I was in a cage and would never be able to break free.

“Please don’t do this. It’s the third home he’s been at. I just need to find someplace to keep him until he’s of age.”

“And then what? Where will he go then?” When there was nothing but silence, the woman continued. “He attacked another boy. He bit his foster dad when he tried to pull Crow off him, and when we asked him why, he wouldn’t tell us.”

“That’s because he doesn’t speak.”

I didn’t understand why she was trying so hard. I was nothing to her, but every time I got kicked out of somewhere, she tried to help. It’s a trap. She’s trying to get close to you so she can use you. She’s trying to get close to you so you trust her, and once you do, she’ll take what she wants, Chosen’s voice said softly in my head. I tried to shake it free. Didn’t want to hear him after what he did to my mom, but his voice was always there. People on the outside never helped because it was the right thing to do. They were hateful and selfish.

“He can speak, but he chooses not to. He can also write, but he won’t do that either. All we need is for him to communicate with us. If it was self-defense, then that’s one thing, but the only person who’s talking says Crow attacked him unprovoked. He tore up the room he was staying in. That’s not the first time this happened. They don’t want him in their home anymore. We have no choice but to honor their wishes. We’re lucky they’re not pressing charges.”

Sharp pain stung my palms, but it didn’t keep me from squeezing my fists tighter. The boy wouldn’t leave me alone, kept bugging me about where I’d come from and calling me names and asking if I was crazy like Chosen had been. He’d spit in my food and peed in my shoes and had tried to cut my hair. But there was no point in telling them that. I didn’t want their help, didn’t want to stay in that house in the busy city where it felt like the walls were closing in on me.

The woman sitting at her desk continued to type on her computer, and every once in a while, her eyes would glance up as if she wasn’t watching me in her periphery the whole time. The click, click, click echoed through my head and made my skin crawl. She was waiting for me to react, waiting to see what the feral boy who didn’t speak would do next.

Didn’t they understand I just didn’t want to be here? That it was too big, everything and everyone so close that it felt like it was suffocating me? I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be on my mountain. That was where I belonged.

The sounds from the office turned to mumbling, like they were speaking softer so I wouldn’t hear them. I didn’t want to hear them either, didn’t want to hear anyone. Just wanted to be alone.

Wanted quiet.

The caseworker, the only one who seemed to care—inexplicably—came out of the office and knelt in front of me. She went to place her hand on my arm, but when I growled, she pulled it back sharply. “Crow, can you tell me what happened? Or write it down? I know you’re able. You can communicate if you want to. If they did or said something to make you react the way you did, I need to know.”

They won’t leave me alone. No one will leave me alone. They ask a million questions and call me names. Say my family was crazy and everyone would be better off if Chosen had killed me too.

I locked the words inside me, dead-bolted my lips shut. No matter what I said, I would be wrong. I was broken to them, as Chosen said I would be.

But then, he’d also killed my mother, had tried to do the same to me.

I turned my head.

She sighed, and I felt like I was letting her down. I shouldn’t care. She wasn’t one of us, she wasn’t Enlightened, but still, I felt a heaviness in my chest.

She told me she was taking me to a special group home. She tried to make it sound like some kind of vacation, but I knew the truth. They were going to try to lock me up. Chosen had said that would happen. That they would lock us all up to keep us from being enlightened, and for sharing the truth with others.

I followed her but didn’t speak.

Got into the car quietly.

I hadn’t spoken a word since they’d taken me from the only home I had ever known, and I didn’t plan to start now. Not here. Maybe not ever again.

I just needed to be around my people. My family. Maybe they could make me understand why my father—why Chosen—had done it. He had to have a reason. Maybe I wasn’t Enlightened enough, wasn’t good enough. Maybe my mother hadn’t been either.

The traffic in the city was loud. Horns blared. Cars zoomed around each other. It made me dizzy. Made my head throb and my breathing come out too fast.

How did people live like this? It was too much. Too everything. It felt like my seams were coming undone, and at any moment, everything inside me would burst out.

We stopped at a red light, and she kept talking to me, on and on and on until I couldn’t take it anymore. My hands fumbled with the handle, but I managed to open the door, unclick the seat belt, and then I ran. A car swerved so it didn’t hit me.

More horns.

More noise.

My name.

I got lost in the crowd.

Home.

I just needed to find the mountain and get home.

It took me five days to get back to Tranquility. I slept on the streets and stole food to eat.

The second I was on the mountain again, I could breathe. I was free. It smelled like trees and fresh air and freedom. I did my best to trap it in my lungs, to hold on to it as tightly as I could.

I knew the way up the mountain like the back of my hand. Chosen had allowed me into town sometimes, but only with elders he trusted. He wanted me to learn about the people we were trying to stay away from, to see what life was like on the outside. He’d even taken me into the city so I could see all the people on the streets, the violence, the ugliness. He’d told me about all the horrible things that went on in the outside world, and I didn’t want any part of it. Everything I had seen proved him right, at least about that part.

I passed the houses lower on the mountain, the ones that weren’t part of The Enlightened. The closer I got to home, the less the weight in my chest bore down on me. The more alive my heart felt.

Mother was gone, Chosen would be too, but the rest of them would be there. They were still Enlightened and would help me understand why Chosen had done it. We could all still be a family.

I ran toward the small community we had built with our hands. The house I’d shared with Mother and Chosen, the building where the others lived…but no one was outside working. No one was tending the gardens, which had all died. Yellow tape covered the entrances, the windows were boarded up.

I didn’t call out for them. I ran into the community building first, but of course it was empty. The main room where everyone slept was lonely—smelling old and musty with layers of dust. Some people had taken their things, but others hadn’t. Some beds were made, others unmade, old food on a table…

I ran to our house next, heart breaking my ribs each time it thumped on them.

The blood had dried into the wooden floors. My mother’s blood. My blood.

But no one was there either.

I was completely alone.

Two days later the police came while I was gardening and took me back to the city. I ran away again, and again and again, every time going home. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I didn’t understand what Chosen had done, why everyone had abandoned our world and the good work we were supposed to be doing for the Lord, but I didn’t know how to be anywhere else either.

And when I turned eighteen, it was a lawyer who came, looking for me.

Mother had been working with him before she died. She was going to leave The Enlightened. Leave Chosen and take me with her. It was wrong, what she had done. This was our home. Chosen knew the right way. He had been handpicked by the Lord to lead us to Righteousness. We were supposed to follow him. We didn’t use banks and speak to lawyers.

But she had done some of those things, hadn’t she?

She’d come from a wealthy family, the lawyer said. Had inherited money when her parents died. I knew nothing about that, knew nothing about people or family before Mother met Chosen and moved onto the mountain.

But the land had been purchased by my mother, the lawyer told me, and she’d been supporting our community before she was killed, and she’d left a will.

The land was mine.

The money too, not that I cared about that.

All I knew was, no one would force me out of my home again.

CHAPTER ONE

Cyrus

How could I not fall in love with a town named Tranquility? That’s what I told myself when I sat down and looked at a map of Colorado, trying to figure out where in the fuck I could disappear to. Leaving the state was always a possibility, but I wasn’t sure I could even do that—not alone, at least, and not forever.

It didn’t make sense, when you thought about it. I wanted to withdraw, to fade into nothingness, but I also couldn’t find it in myself to leave the state I’d been born in. The one I’d shared with my mom. Where we had stayed up all night, giggling and talking like the best of friends, eating popcorn with extra butter and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt on top. The state where she told me she would always love me no matter what, and if there was ever anything I needed to share with her, that her love for me would never change, which had given me the courage to come out to her at twelve years old.

But it was also the place where I would come home some days and see her passed out on the couch with a needle in her arm. Where I held her while she cried and told me she was sorry she fell off the wagon again, promised she would kick the drugs and be the mom I deserved. And she tried. She always tried, but it never worked, and one day when I found her, I couldn’t wake her up.

She had never woken up again.

And no matter how much I’d sworn I would never do the same thing, depression and loneliness had led me straight to drugs’ doors, where I’d busted the thing down and had taken my fill…until I’d woken up from my OD, lucky I wasn’t dead too…

And after a year sober from drugs, sex, and an ex-boyfriend who liked to provide me with both, and liked me to provide his friends with both, I’d landed in Tranquility.

But, unsurprisingly, there had been no magic fix. After a few weeks there, I still felt as alone on the inside as I always had. People were friendly enough. They waved on the streets, and held the door open for you, and all those things you heard about small towns, but at twenty-five, I was starting to believe I was the problem. That something inside me was broken and maybe it would never be fixed.

Like I did most things, I buried that inside me and got into the shower to get ready to go to work at the hardware store.

On the way, I stopped by the local coffeehouse to get my iced, extra-shot latte. I might have given up cocaine and heroin, but I could never give up caffeine. A guy was allowed to have one vice, right?

“Hey, Cyrus. How are you this morning?” Melody, the barista, asked. I heard she was the owner too, but she worked the counter every time I was there. She was kind, really kind. Probably too kind for me, and though it seemed like she might be trying to be my friend, I was hesitant. I had a knack for hurting people, and for getting hurt myself.

“Hello! I’m doing great. Just needed my daily pick-me-up.” I gave her a wide, fake smile that no one ever recognized wasn’t real. Sometimes it was scary how easy it was to fake it, to pretend you were happy and life was great. Most people didn’t take the time to look, not really, because if they did, they would see most of us were barely hanging on. But my shit wasn’t any more important than anyone else’s, and it wasn’t their responsibility to make sure I was okay. That didn’t mean that sometimes I didn’t just…wish someone would ask. That they would truly care if I was okay.

“Daily? Come on now,” Melody teased, starting to make my drink without me having to tell her what I wanted. “Twice a day’s more like it.”

“Why do you gotta air all my dirty laundry?” I volleyed back to her, and Melody laughed.

While she did her magic, I went to the end of the counter and browsed the internet on my phone.

It was a hot July—hard to believe that in a few months’ time snow would cover the ground and I’d spend my days bundled up and wishing I had a fireplace. Mom had always loved them, and she used to talk to me about the one in her house growing up.

Melody chatted with me for another moment after I got my coffee, and then I made my escape. I got to Harry’s Hardware store early and sat on the bench outside. We were right on Main Street, all around me people walking their dogs and going into shops. Does she feel alone too? What about her or him? It was a game I played as I observed the people passing by. I felt trapped between this place of not wanting anyone to know my loneliness, but also feeling less that way if I knew others experienced it too.

I’d drunk about a quarter of my coffee, when two older men came out of the store and stood on the other side of my bench to smoke and chat. Half of my coffee left, when I heard them say, “Oh, it’s that time of the month. Crazy Crow Jackson comes down the mountain.”

I looked up from my phone. They’d piqued my interest—of course I wanted to see what they were talking about. I followed their gazes across the street, where I saw a tall man with dark hair that hung past his shoulders. It was loose against his back, some hanging around his face like a curtain shielding him from view. He was getting out of an older pickup truck, wearing a pair of threadbare jeans with paint on them, work boots, and a tight black T-shirt. Whoever the fuck Crazy Crow was, it was clear the man spent a lot of time either working out or doing manual labor. Even through his clothes I could see how incredible his body was. Not too bulky, but enough to grab my attention. He was long, lean, and incredibly cut, the sleeves of his T-shirt almost too tight on his muscles. Yeah, his chest and arms were definitely broader than mine. I’d been called a twink often for a reason.

I watched as he pushed a lock of hair behind his ear. He had a scruffy beard and strong hands. I couldn’t make out his eye color, but his jaw looked square and strong, even under the hair.

Inexplicably, my stomach tensed. Not in an uncomfortable way, just…a different one. I wasn’t sure how to explain it other than that.

One of the men said, “He needs to get the hell outta here and go somewhere he belongs.”

“Who is he?” I found myself asking while he went into the post office.

The two men looked at me like I’d grown a second head, probably because they didn’t recognize me and I was talking to them. And apparently, everyone knew who this man was.

“I’m new in town,” I explained.

They gave me that look that said they wished people would stop moving to their small town, and while I got it, that wasn’t really the way the world worked.

“His dad was the leader of that cult, The Enlightened. Bunch of wackos, if you ask me. They secluded themselves in a community up the mountain, up higher than the other houses. His dad lost it one day, killed his mama, then tried to kill him. His dad went to prison, everyone in the cult left, but he came back. Been living up there ever since.”

“Alone?” I asked, heart pumping overtime.

“Far as anyone knows,” the second man replied. “Probably lures women up there and does all sorts of unspeakable things to them.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” the first agreed. “He comes to town about once a month, except when the snow comes. Then he’s stuck up there, doing God knows what for months on end.”

On the mountain for months on end? And other than that, only coming down once a month? I…couldn’t imagine that, didn’t know if I thought he was nuts for doing it or if I was jealous he had that life and I didn’t.

My gaze found the post office again, and I wondered what the mountain man was doing inside. Most likely checking his mail or sending something out, but what was it? I didn’t figure his bills came that way. But then, hell, did he even have internet? Electricity?

“Does he have power up there?” He had to, right? It was impossible to live without it.

“Yeah. He’s on the very edge of how far up he can go and still have power. He’s still secluded, though. Some of us went up there after the cult cleared out. It was weird as shit. I think they were Satanists.”

“I heard they were witches.” The second guy took a drag of his cigarette. “The guy is batshit crazy. Doesn’t even fuckin’ speak.”

“He’s mute?”

They both shrugged, but then the first man said, “I don’t know what the fuck it is. I just know he doesn’t talk. I think there’s something wrong with him.”

I thought there was something wrong with them, talking about him the way they did. It was always so damn easy for people to judge others if they didn’t live the exact same way they did, to judge people for addiction or mental illness or, hell, the color of their skin or who they loved. I’d seen it a million times. I wasn’t surprised anymore. All it did was make me feel even more intensely this heaviness that lived inside my bones.

I tuned them out as they talked about the mountain man. My eyes were riveted on the door until he came out, my breath catching in my throat. He put a bag into the cab of his truck, then walked down the street until he disappeared.

I wanted to know more about him. Why he was alone, and why he didn’t speak. If it was a choice or if he couldn’t. I wanted to know why he’d gone back up that mountain after his own dad tried to kill him. I wanted to know what it was like to be secluded that way.

None of this made any sense. I shouldn’t be curious about a man like him, but I couldn’t stop the feeling from growing inside me.

He didn’t come back before I had to go inside for my shift. I stocked and worked the register, whatever they needed me to do. Half an hour after clocking in, the mountain man was still on my mind. We were slow, the other employee stocking now while I manned the register, waiting for someone to need me. The bell over the door dinged.

“Hi,” I said automatically. “Welcome to—” My gaze connected with the mountain man’s. He was…fuck, he was even bigger up close. I wasn’t a short guy at six feet, but he probably had at least three inches on me. His dark-brown gaze snapped to mine, something wild and feral about it.

This man was dangerous. One look at him was all it took to know that. The wildness radiated off him like heat from a furnace.

He took slow, measured steps toward one of the aisles, his stare never leaving me. My breath was trapped in my lungs. My heart had stopped beating. I couldn’t figure out why he had this effect on me. He was gorgeous, that much was obvious, but I’d seen a hundred hot guys in my life, and this, looking at him, had nothing to do with sex appeal.

He looks as lonely as I feel.

Maybe lonelier.

It was stupid to think I could see that in him. I didn’t know this man. But I sensed his fierceness, his detachment from the world, and while that should push me away, all it did was draw me in.

While he walked around, he kept gazing at me from under hooded eyes framed by thick, dark lashes. The moment he stepped around the corner, right before he was gone from my view, I was pretty sure the left side of his mouth had kicked up just slightly…in a snarl? A half-smile? I had no idea. He knew I was watching him. Knew I was afraid of him. And maybe he liked that.

For the first time in a long time, maybe since I’d snorted coke up my nose or shot heroin into my veins those initial times, I was interested in something, felt something other than emptiness.

My feet were rooted to the floor. I couldn’t move, despite the urge to follow him, to approach him and…do what? Ask him if he needed any help?

A customer came to the counter, not giving me any choice but to stay where I was.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?” I asked, gaze shooting toward the aisles running the length of the store, hoping for a glimpse at the mountain man.

The customer rambled on and on, and honestly, I tuned her out. Hopefully she didn’t say anything I needed to respond to because my brain had taken a road trip and was with the man—with Crow.

When I finished, she said goodbye, and I immediately stepped around the counter to look for him. It was wrong of me to want to gawk at him, to treat him like he was some kind of show, but I didn’t know how to tamp down my newfound curiosity.

I went down one of the rows but didn’t see him. What if he came to the check-out counter and my coworker got to him before I did? At least if I stayed at the register, I was guaranteed to see him again. Even if he didn’t buy anything, he’d have to walk by me to leave.

I pretended to straighten up the candy while I waited for him. Fear made the back of my neck tingle, but entwined with that was being intrigued by him, wanting to know how he made it work, living away from people, and if he was happy, but he couldn’t be, could he? Not if what I’d seen in his gaze was real.

I was obsessing over him. I’d never done this with a person before, but I’d done it with feelings or experiences. I was known to be hot or cold with people and about things, but when I was hot, I was scorching. While I knew it wasn’t healthy, I still wanted to chase down the feeling.

A few minutes later I felt someone looming behind me, felt a blast of warmth and a hot stare on that spot on my nape where the hairs stood on end. I turned around, knowing it was him. He pinned me with his intense gaze, with those wild eyes that almost didn’t look real.

I wasn’t proud over the fact that I gasped and took a step backward, only to be stopped by the counter. Crow just stood there watching me, the hair on his left side pushed behind his ear, but on the right, it hung down, shielding part of his face.

Move. Do something. Say something. Because somehow, I knew if I didn’t, Crow would stand there all day watching me. Or hell, maybe he would just walk out with his belongings, and then I’d get this mountain man arrested because I couldn’t make myself do my job.

He took a step closer. Blood rushed through my ears, panic flaring inside me as he reached out toward me, but then he just set a product down on the counter beside me. I breathed out a sigh of relief.

Get it together, Cyrus. You’re being an idiot.

He wasn’t going to do anything to me in the middle of Harry’s Hardware.

Clearing my throat, I walked around the counter to stand behind the register again. “Did…did you find everything okay?” I asked, but of course, he didn’t respond. He just continued to place tools, staining, brushes, and other items on the counter. He had pulled a flat cart with him, stacked with wood and a couple of propane tanks.

I tried to think of something to say, but I was drawing a blank. So I just continued scanning his items, and Crow didn’t take his eyes off me as he finished up. When I got to the big items, I had to step around the counter with the scanner. When I breathed in, I could swear he smelled like Douglas fir mixed with a natural musk that went straight to my head.

I bent down to finish scanning the items, and when I looked up, he was watching me, head cocked slightly as though he was trying to figure something out. This time when I opened my mouth, “I—” came out, but I bit back the rest of my words when he gave me a simple shake of his head.

He didn’t want me to talk to him. The ache in my chest grew, though I shouldn’t have been surprised and I also shouldn’t care.

I went back around the counter and said, “Two hundred and thirteen dollars and fifty-seven cents.” My voice was scratchy, like I hadn’t used it in too long.

Crow paid in cash, setting the money down for me to pick up. When I gave him his change, I did the same, so he wouldn’t have to touch me if he didn’t want to. I smiled, hoping he knew that was done as a kind gesture, but got a frown in return.

Then he reached out, and I gasped again, my eyes squeezing shut, afraid of what he would do. He didn’t touch me, and I knew I should open my eyes, should say something or do something, but I just stood there like that for a few moments, maybe hoping he would touch me while also afraid that he would.

When I heard the bell over the door, I finally looked up, in time to see him disappear from view.

I didn’t know what that had been—my response to him, or what he’d planned to do. All I knew was I couldn’t wait until next month. I wanted to see him again.

*

Thankfully, I was off the next day, because I couldn’t make myself go to sleep that night. I spent hour after hour on the internet, researching everything I could about Crow and the cult. There wasn’t a lot of information, and what was known had been learned after Crow’s dad—whom they’d called The Chosen—had killed his mom. Since that day, only a few ex-members had spoken, selling their stories to the highest bidder. So I wasn’t even sure if any of it was true, or how much of it was.

Others from the cult had kept to themselves. Not to the extent that Crow did, but they didn’t speak about their time in The Enlightened, likely wanting to forget it existed.

Apparently, all the men had been given vasectomies. They weren’t allowed to have children until they were “fully Enlightened,” whatever that meant, and of course, no one had been that except Crow’s dad, the leader. It was why there hadn’t been any other children in the compound. Crow hadn’t grown up with anyone his age, no kids at all. While I’d been teased mercilessly as a child and hadn’t ever had friends, at least I’d known what it was like to be around other people my age.

Did that mean he’d never seen or talked to another person his age until he was sixteen and put in foster care?

I struggled to read through the tears, my eyes blurry, words swimming when they talked about him surviving a knife attack from his own father. How Crow had pulled him off his mom and fought him as his dad had gone after Crow next.

How he’d been bloody and feral, kicking, screaming, and assaulting the police officers who’d come up the mountain and took him away.

How he stopped speaking after that, got kicked out of or ran away from every home he’d ever been in.

I read the same articles over and over again, unable to stop. Each word added another weight around my heart, pulled me down and made me ache, as I took that onto myself like I’d been the one to experience it.

It was often this way for me. I carried the pain of other people, carried it from my mom before she died, and now, though I didn’t live in everyone’s traumas, I couldn’t stop myself from drowning in Crow’s, while at the same time, strangely, being almost jealous of him. Not about what he’d gone through, never that, but that he’d escaped, that he was living on his own terms. Away from all the pain that never left my side.

Or hell, maybe he lived with it too.

CHAPTER TWO

Crow

I couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful man with the dark hair and broken gray eyes. I didn’t know how to explain them other than that—broken. It had been days since I’d been down the mountain, but I could still feel his gaze on my skin. Not with disdain or disgust like some of the other townsfolk. And not with naked lust either, the way Bruce did before I fucked his brains out every time I needed it.

Maybe I needed to see him. Maybe it had been too long and that’s why I was thinking about the new man in town, this broken man who’d looked at me like he saw me, or wanted to see me, but the thing was, I didn’t want to be seen. Not by him or anyone else.

I spent my morning chopping wood and lining it up in the barn. I tried to get some done each day so I would have enough to get me through the winter. While I had heat, there was something about a fire when it was cold, the wood crackling…helping drown out the quiet.

Over the years, I’d torn down the house I’d lived in with Chosen—my father—and with my mother. In its place was now a large, one-story log cabin that had come from my own hands and hard work. It was bigger than I needed, more rooms than I needed, but it helped me feel less trapped. Plus, in the beginning, I wondered if anyone would come back, but of course they never did.

The community building where my previous family had lived was now remodeled into a large shop with two levels, and tucked in one of the back rooms, under lock and key, were all my paintings, drawings, and art supplies.

Then of course, I had the barn, and my outdoor gardens that flourished every year, and a greenhouse too, but more important than any of those things was the freedom I had on Tranquility Mountain, the comfort and security.

Once I had the wood cut and stacked, I picked vegetables and brought them inside. My skin felt too tight in a way it hadn’t in a long time. It was always like that when I went into town, but this was more. Like it had been when I was young and had been taken from my home to a world that didn’t make sense. Now I understood it better, having used the internet to learn, but I still hated it, didn’t want any part of it.

I thought about going to my art room, but I was too antsy for that, so I changed my clothes, loaded my rifle, grabbed my knife and other hunting supplies, and set out through the army of trees.

I was early—or late, depending on how you looked at it. Deer moved the most at dusk and dawn, but the sun would be setting in a few hours, and I could breathe better out here anyway.

There was no area of this mountain I hadn’t explored. I’d slept under the stars here more times than I could count. Had hunted prey and been prey myself, escaping both bears and mountain lions more than once.

I was in their home. I understood that and tried to respect it as much as possible, but this mountain was my home too. Always had been and always would be. We had to learn to share it. I felt closer to the animals here than the people in town below. Wildlife never hid who they were. They wanted to be left alone or wanted you dead; there wasn’t much in between. They never pretended to be something they weren’t. They didn’t play tricks with your mind, twisting it so they could control you. I would always choose an animal’s nature over a human’s.

My footsteps were soft and quiet as I continued through the forest. The earth made noises around me—a snake in the brush, birds nesting, the wind dancing through the branches—creating the only lullaby I needed. My mother had sung to me as a child—when she could hide from Chosen and do it—but once I’d hit twelve, Chosen had found out and punished us both. I was a man, he said, and it was time to act like it. That she’d put me above him and the Lord, and that was wrong.

I didn’t stop moving until I found the exact spot I needed. I’d been there before, too many times to count. I lowered myself to the ground, keeping alert, aware of my surroundings, while also closing my eyes, focusing on my hearing rather than my sight. I felt closer to nature this way, could let go of the things inside my head and just be.

I didn’t know how long I sat out there, but the time didn’t matter. When I heard the crack of a twig, I opened my eyes and slowly slid the rifle from around my back. I didn’t make a sound as I turned around. I raised the gun, looked through the scope, and aimed.

The doe was gone before she realized it, and she would help feed me this winter.

*

“Why aren’t any other kids here?” I asked Chosen as we sat in his sanctuary, the place where he worshipped. We had one for the whole community, but he had his own as well. It was only because of him that any of us were becoming Enlightened, and the only way to continue on our journey was through Chosen.

“Why do you ask questions you know the answers to? It is beneath you. How are you ever supposed to become truly Enlightened and walk beside me if you can’t do anything right?”

His words pressed down on my heart like the heel of a boot, smashing it into the ground. “I’m sorry, Chosen. I just…it’s lonely.”

He sighed, clearly tired of me and all the ways I messed up. “That’s your fault. You’re supposed to be able to see past those lies like loneliness. That is not where true Enlightenment comes from. Where is that?”

“From you, Chosen.” He was the answer to every question. Only through him would the world be saved. When the world ended, only Chosen’s followers would be left behind to start over again and then be in the company of the Lord.

“Exactly, Crow.” He walked over and stood beside me. I was sitting at a table, studying the lesson he’d given me for today. He needed to pass all his knowledge on to me so that I could walk by his side, so if anything ever happened to him, I would be able to fill his shoes. Since he was Chosen by God, if I could be good enough, that meant I could be Chosen by him too. “This is your burden to bear, and you must bear it for your family, for your mother, for any chance of reaching Enlightenment and being free. You want that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I answered quickly. Of course I did. I wanted to make the world a better place. I wanted to be strong for my mother. I wanted to be the son he needed me to be. If I was the only rightful child to be born—because I was the only one to come from a person who had reached true Enlightenment—I would be the best son I could be. I would work hard and follow his teachings and make him proud. I wouldn’t need people or feel loneliness because none of those things were as important as fulfilling my destiny as his son.

“Good job, son. Now go for punishment. You shouldn’t have asked me about this. You should be concentrating on your betterment, on what our people need, and not be upset you don’t have children to play with. Tell them I said twelve hours and ten swats.”

My heart jumped into my throat at his words. I knew that we needed pain because it made us tougher, stronger, but I hated my time in isolation. Being alone in the dark for twelve hours was torture.

Because I was weak.

I needed this.

Chosen was right.

He was always right.

“Yes, Chosen.” I stood on shaky legs, wishing I could get out of this, then hating myself for thinking that. From punishment came Growth.

I made it all the way to the door before he said, “Crow?”

“Yes, Chosen?”

“Don’t tell your mother about this. I’ll tell her you’re hunting. It will break her heart that you required punishment. You don’t want to hurt her, do you?”

“No, Chosen.” I never wanted to hurt her. “I won’t tell her.”

My eyes jerked open, but I didn’t move. My reaction was always different when it came to having a dream about before. Sometimes I was angry, others I felt nothing at all. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t change anything I’d been through. The only thing that ever hurt was when I thought about her. My mother. She had given up her life for me. She had wanted something more for me. Not more than the mountain, I didn’t think. If so, I couldn’t give her that—couldn’t leave this place I loved so much. Did it matter that my life was different? Would she at least be happy that I didn’t spend my life getting hit with a switch, spending hours alone in isolation, or carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders?

My eyes were wide open, and I knew I wouldn’t sleep again tonight, so I did what I often did in moments like these. I got out of bed, went to my safe, and plucked out my mother’s journal. She’d told her story within these pages, some notes to me specifically, some just writing out her feelings. I’d never known it existed until the lawyer had given it to me.

She had been alone when she’d met my father. She’d grown up in a very wealthy family, with parents who traveled often. She was raised by nannies. When she was eighteen, her parents died in an airplane crash. She’d been searching for love, for community, and had found it in Chosen. He was older than her and charismatic. When he’d spoken, people had listened.

I opened the journal, eyes scanning the sometimes neat, sometimes messy handwriting. I didn’t read in order, just picked over certain things, even though I knew the whole thing by heart.

When my parents died, they left me everything, but money was all I had. No self-confidence, no self-esteem, had never known what it was like to be loved, and I wanted that, so very badly.

It was only a few months after my parents passed away that I met Chosen. I was nineteen, naive to the world, lonely. I didn’t have many friends. He was handsome and charismatic. All the women wanted to be with him, and all the men wanted to be him. He just had that electric kind of personality. When he spoke, people listened, they believed, they wanted to be a part of whatever he was.

For some reason I couldn’t understand, Chosen wanted me, picked me, made me feel loved for the first time. I had never known anything like that before.

I see now that he picked me because he knew he could manipulate me, that I was so needy for love, he could take advantage of that…

You deserved better than the life we were giving you.

That’s when I started my plan of escape, but I think I knew even then that it was too late for me. But I swear to you, Crow, it’s not too late for you! It is never too late for you.

I closed the book and locked it away again. While it helped me deconstruct the things Chosen had taught me, it also filled me with guilt, because now she was dead, and I would never be able to give her so many of the things she’d wanted for me.

CHAPTER THREE

Cyrus

I was counting the days until Crow might come down the mountain again. Was it every single month? Did it happen on the exact same day? Did he always go to the hardware store? So many questions I didn’t have answers to, and I didn’t know who to ask, or if I should ask. This obsession I’d had with him over the last few weeks probably wasn’t healthy, but I held on to it just to have something.

Today was exactly a month since the day he’d come down the mountain, and of course I was off work. I didn’t ask for much in life. Couldn’t I be working the day my new fascination came back so I would have an excuse to talk to him? Instead, I was searching for my keys, which I kept losing. The plan was to head downtown and linger around all day in hopes of spotting him. What I would say to him if I did see him was a mystery.

It was still early in the morning when I made my way to Tranquil Brew so I could get my coffee. Melody was working like always. I swear the woman never had a day off. She smiled when she saw me in a way that made warning bells go off inside me.

“Hey, Cyrus. You’re a little early today.”

That’s because I’m trying to stalk a mountain man.

“I’m off work but felt like getting out of the apartment early.” Which was unusual but good for me. I tended to sit around all day when I was off. Depending on my mood, I could stay home for days, weeks even, while other times, I had to get out or I felt like I was losing it.

“Well, lucky me.”

That warning inside me grew. I stuffed my hands in my jeans pockets and tried to avoid making eye contact with her. Did I just spit out that I was gay? If I was wrong about what she was doing, I’d look like an asshole, and if she was a homophobe, that would suck. But then, it had been a long time since I’d hidden my sexuality from anyone, a long time since I was ashamed, and I didn’t plan to go back into the closet now. People in Tranquility didn’t know, but that was only because I wasn’t friends with anyone. I hadn’t been here long enough to hook up with anyone either, if there was even someone I could hook up with. I had no idea.

She charged me for my usual, while I racked my brain for what to say. “I moved here to get away from my ex-boyfriend,” I spit out like an idiot. I’d left Eddie over a year ago, after my OD and before going into rehab, but I’d run into him a few times after that, and he always tried to get me back. I couldn’t figure out why because when we were together, he was never happy with anything I did.

“Ugh. I have an asshole ex too,” she replied. “And I thought you might be queer.”

She had? “I thought…”

“You thought I was trying to hit on you? No. I just thought we might be on the same team. I guess I should mention my ex is a woman.”

Oh…oh. “Well, now I feel stupid.”

Melody chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. You are cute, just not my type. But I do know how hard it can be to find your people, so if you need a friend…”

That was even harder to wrap my head around than her hitting on me. I hadn’t had friends since I was sober. One might argue I didn’t have friends when I was using either. It was all about drugs or Eddie or being high and fucking Eddie and his friends. Gangbangs were his thing, and I was usually the center of attention. Not that it had bothered me. I loved sex and chased the feeling it gave me. While the high never lasted, for a moment or two it felt good. Not the deep, real kind of good. I wasn’t sure I ever felt something real in my life, but temporarily it gave me something.

“Thank you,” I replied, which was probably not what she’d been hoping to hear. “I’m not good at that…friendship. I tend to…” Fuck it up? Get lost inside myself? Drop off the face of the earth? Get high and forget about someone? The list was endless.

“No pressure. I just thought I’d put it out there. How about I give you my number just in case, and if you feel comfortable, you can give me yours?”

Wow, that was really fucking cool of her, especially when my response probably could have used some work. Telling someone I sucked at friendship was an asshole move and likely sounded like an excuse. I nodded, then looked away while she finished making my drink. When she handed it over, we swapped numbers, and then I quickly slipped out of Tranquil Brew, my skin too tight and feeling like I’d let her down, and somehow, like I’d let my mom down too. She would have wanted me to try to be friends with Melody. She would have wanted me to have as many friends as possible.

Instead, I was walking down the sidewalk to sit on a bench across the street from my work, to drink my iced coffee and wait for a man who may never come, and one I had no business being so interested in. But hey, I’d given her my number, so that was something, right?

I shifted uncomfortably after the first half hour. People walked by, waving and saying hi the way they often did in places like this. I always felt like it gave a false sense of security, like they really cared, when most of them would judge someone like me for how I lived my life and turn their backs on me if they knew the truth. They would talk about me the same way they talked about Crow, a blemish on the pristine image they tried to create here.

I sat there for hours, knowing it was ridiculous, knowing this wasn’t normal, but still not having it in myself to leave. Eventually, I walked up and down Main Street, needing to move, not wanting to be the creepy guy who sat outside the post office and watched the hardware store all day. If Crow came back, I would see him.

By late afternoon, it was clear he likely wouldn’t show. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, had gone into my work to use the bathroom twice while making up some silly excuse. I looked down as I walked, eyes watching my feet move along the sidewalk toward my quiet apartment. It was only four, but I stripped and climbed into bed, ready to go to sleep for the night. It wasn’t as if I had anything else to do.

*

Three days later I forced myself to go to the grocery store. I didn’t get much, but my fridge had been pretty empty, so I’d needed to get at least a little bit of food into the house. I’d been living off one meal a day, just not caring enough to do anything about it.

I turned down one of the aisles and froze in my tracks. He was there—Crow—standing in front of the cereal. As ridiculous as it sounded, my first thought was, he eats cereal? As if he wasn’t human or something. He put a few boxes of granola into his cart—so apparently not what I considered good cereal—then continued on. My pulse stumbled, nerves and curiosity colliding inside me, the winner being my interest in him, so I followed. The bread aisle was next. I looked at the shelves and dropped hamburger buns in my cart, though I had no plan to eat them.

“Jesus, the fucking weirdo is here,” I heard someone say behind me. I turned around to see three men in their early twenties.

“Fucking freak,” another said, making the hairs on my nape stand on end. The words were bad enough, but there was something about the way he said it that made my gut twist.

They walked past me like they didn’t notice me, like I didn’t matter, which honestly, wasn’t something new for me. I walked along behind them, letting my instincts lead me.

“Hey, psycho. When the fuck are you going to get out of here and go find somewhere you belong?” the biggest of the three said, and while he was thick and had beefy arms, he didn’t look as in shape or like he had the raw strength Crow appeared to possess.

Crow looked to the side just slightly, hair in his face, peeking at the guy with narrow, cold eyes that made shivers run down my spine. I paused, almost afraid to step forward, afraid to get any closer to him. He was a loose cannon; I could see that in the wild stare.

“You stupid or something?” The guy pushed Crow, hand on his left pec.

Everything moved too fast from there. I didn’t see him do it, but a second later, Crow had the guy’s hand in his, squeezing it. The man cried out in pain, bent forward like he was trying to find a less uncomfortable position.

“Let go,” he ordered.

Crow’s only response was a tic in his jaw and the muscles in his arm tightening.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re going to break his hand!” one of the other men shouted, but it was like Crow was in his own world, like everything human inside him had been cut off, like he couldn’t hear or see or even know what he was doing. And while I knew I should be scared, I wasn’t. There was nothing I could do to pull my attention away.

The guy fell to his knees, and as much as he deserved having his hand broken, I knew Crow wouldn’t come out of this well…and even though I didn’t know him, I didn’t want him to get into trouble.

“Crow.” His name fell out of my mouth without me planning on saying it. Unlike when the other men spoke to him, his head snapped up, gaze locking on mine. His eyes softened momentarily, before they immediately hardened again, his anger at them shooting in my direction.

But the distraction was just what the men needed. One of them swung at him. His fist connected with Crow’s face, making him let go of the first guy’s hand. Before he could do much to defend himself, the biggest of the three tried to tackle him. His arm went around Crow’s waist, body slamming into him. They stumbled into the shelves, food packages falling to the floor.

The commotion was enough to send people running their direction. Two male store workers and another guy went straight for Crow, pulling him off the other guy. He was fighting like crazy to get away from them, snarling and growling. One of the thugs went to hit him again, but I threw myself between them.

“No. Stop.”

“Get the fuck out of the way.”

“Fuck you,” I replied. No way was I going to let them hit Crow again. There were how many of them there?

“Listen,” the first guy said, cradling his arm, “you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. This piece of shit is—” He stopped when two police officers came running.

“What’s going on here?” one of them asked—Officer Paulson, per his badge.

“This motherfucker tried to break my hand!” The guy held up his swollen limb.

The men who held Crow let him go. I was surprised he didn’t speak then, but he didn’t try to walk away either.

“They started it,” I said. “They approached him, angry that he’s here. Crow was only shopping. He pushed Crow, who grabbed him in self-defense.”

“That’s not… We didn’t…” the men stumbled over their words.

One of the men who’d held Crow back said, “He don’t belong here, but they were the ones that tackled him.”

“He does too belong here,” I snapped. Jesus Christ. What was wrong with people?

The other officer—Dirk—said, “You can’t keep outta trouble, can you? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Crow didn’t speak, but I felt the blast of heat shoot off him.

Officer Paulson sighed. “Billy, the three of you are always causing trouble. You never leave him alone. You don’t think we know what happened here?”

“He almost broke my fuckin’ hand!” the guy I guessed was Billy hollered.

“You know there are cameras here. Are you going to make us go watch the video?” Paulson asked, and this was the strangest engagement with the police I had ever seen. Was this what happened in small towns?

Officer Dirk shot Crow an angry look before turning to the others. “You know he’s not going to press charges, but the three of you are all on probation. I’m sure if you all get this mess cleaned up, we can all walk away from this without anyone getting into trouble.” He was trying to protect Billy and his friends, even knowing they’d pushed Crow first, and hell, maybe they were just being lazy too, not wanting to fill out the paperwork.

“Stay the fuck on your mountain, freak.” Billy spat at Crow’s feet. He tried to lunge again, but the officers stepped in front of him.

Dirk crossed his arms. “You don’t want to do that.” Then he turned to Crow. “Don’t think we did this to protect you. We just don’t need any more negative attention in Tranquility. Why don’t you go up that mountain where you belong?”

“He has the same right to be here as anyone else,” I defended. Crow shot me a seething look, and I took a step back on reflex.

“Dirk,” Paulson said, warning in his voice, surprisingly, maybe because he too believed Crow had the right to stay here if he wanted.

Dirk held up his hands and chuckled. “I’m only trying to help.”

No, he wasn’t. He was being a dick. They were clearly a good cop/bad cop duo, and Dirk was the asshole.

Crow didn’t respond to anyone, sending me another angry glare before walking away.

“What’s your name?” Officer Dirk asked.

“Cyrus Evans.” I stood taller. If he was trying to intimidate me, that wasn’t going to happen. I’d been on the streets, around drug dealers and other really bad people. The only thing he could do that I hadn’t had done to me was hurt me in legal ways, but like everything in my life, I would come back from that too…or I wouldn’t, and that was something I was willing to accept as well.

“You’re new in Tranquility?” He quirked a brow.

“You know I am,” I countered.

He gave me a fake grin in return. “Welcome. We’re happy to have you.”

I bet he was.

Paulson said, “Could you write down your information for me? And we’ll be in touch if we need anything.”

I took the notepad from him, wrote down my name, cell number, and address, before grabbing Crow’s cart and pushing it to mine. The workers cleaned up, the officers talking to each other while I took all the items from Crow’s cart and put them in mine.

This kind of thing had apparently happened before, so Crow would likely come down and buy what he needed another day or go somewhere else to get it, but I damn sure was going to try and make it so he didn’t have to do that.

CHAPTER FOUR

Crow

I drove too fast up the mountain, my truck fishtailing more than once. My pulse throbbed. My head spun. My heart was in a war with my chest, doing it’s damnedest to break through.

I’d wanted to break Billy’s hand.

I’d wanted to kill him.

I still did.

I followed the familiar road, past the other houses, climbing higher, until it turned to gravel. I wouldn’t feel like I could breathe until I was behind the metal fence in the distance. I’d put it in when I was eighteen. It was one of the first things I’d done after inheriting my mom’s money.

It didn’t stretch around the whole property—I’d had to make it as safe as possible for the animals while also trying to keep people away. If anyone wanted to get to my house, they would have to get there on foot by going around the fence, and that was the most important thing to me. To see them coming and have the advantage.

I pressed in the gate code and watched it slide open, thumbs drumming on my steering wheel, a small way to let out all the pent-up energy and anger inside me.

It didn’t work.

My vehicle skidded to a stop in front of my log house, the sun still high in the sky above it. I threw the truck door open, then slammed it closed, wanting something to hit, to break, to let this anger bleed from me even if I got hurt in the process. It was the only way I knew, something that had been taught to me by the father I hated, but whose voice was still inside my head.

Pain was punishment, yes, but it was also a way to Clarity. To open your mind and break down walls and set yourself free. And the easiest way not to go down there, into town, and hurt them, was to hurt myself.

I took long strides toward the closest tree and began to punch. Pain burst through my knuckles and up through my wrists as my fists pounded the thick bark. In seconds I was bleeding, and a minute later the swelling started. My breathing came out hard and fast, the urge to keep going threatening to win, but I forced myself to pull back. I slid to the ground, back against the tree I’d just used to fight through all the emotions pelting me. Chosen had been wrong about so many things, but he’d been right in that most people down there would never understand me. They were filled with entitlement and hate for anything different from them.

My chest ached as I struggled to slow my breathing, the throbbing pain in my hands centering me in a way. I couldn’t afford to let myself break them, or I would have kept going.

No one in Tranquility wanted me around, and I didn’t give a fuck about that. I didn’t want them around either, but Billy, Chuck, and Hank were the only three who didn’t just ignore me. They wanted to make a lesson out of me, wanted to wield their control over me, and I would kill all three of them before I let them do that. No one would control me ever again.

I went into the house, dripping blood from my hands with each step. I took a bottle of alcohol from my stash, poured it over my left hand, then my right. That was the extent I would go to to clean them. I still felt like an earthquake had met up with a hurricane inside my chest, and it took everything in me not to wreck my own things, not to throw and hit and rip up everything in sight. My feelings were always so big, so overwhelming that I struggled not to lose myself to it, not to let them overtake me because what was the damn point in fighting so hard? The townspeople would never just let me be. Why not become the thing they accused me of being? Or hell, maybe I already was.

I slid down the wall, closing my eyes and counting backward from ten, trying not to give in to those instincts I fought against so hard, the ones Chosen used to tell me I had to grow and open myself up to because I was weak and weak men couldn’t be leaders. The Lord had Chosen him because he was strong, and I had to be too. I’d never wanted to be a leader, though, and he’d wanted a son he could mold into a replica of himself. What I’d wanted was his happiness, so I forced myself to be on board with the rest of it. I’d become his soldier in Enlightenment, which wasn’t being Enlightened at all. We had been pawns for him to feel powerful and in control.

Time got away from me. That happened sometimes. I’d be sitting there, and the next thing I knew, I’d disappeared inside my head without any idea of how much time had passed.

The alarm warning me someone or something was at the gate pulled me out of it. It could be an animal. They set it off sometimes, but the way the storm picked up inside me, the eye of the hurricane having passed, told me it was something else.

Maybe it was Billy, Chuck, and Hank. They’d never come up the mountain before, never braved my wrath where they didn’t have people around who would always see me as wrong and them as right, but I wanted it to be them. Wanted to be able to deal with them on my turf, to stalk them in these woods I knew so well, because that was how I felt every time I went to town. Stalked.

I pulled up the app on my phone and frowned at the battered car that looked nothing like the jacked-up truck Billy drove. My confusion grew when after a moment, it was the pretty man who got out, the one who wore his sadness like a second skin.

He ran a hand through his short, dark hair. It stuck up slightly in the front and sorta went to one side. The man had delicate bone structure but sharp cheekbones and an angular face. He walked over to the gate, fumbled with the latch, then seemed to realize he couldn’t open it. He looked around at the trees, the ground, the forest, as if trying to figure out another way.

I zoomed in closer. Saw him lick his pretty, plump lips, then rub the back of his neck in a move that said he didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen a mouth like his, bow-shaped and like it had been painted to be perfect. He was smaller than me, only a few inches shorter but much thinner and with less muscle. His cheeks had been pink in the store earlier, highlighting the freckles that danced across the bridge of his nose and along his cheekbones. His hand trembled, and I felt something inside me stir. I wanted him. Wanted to fuck him and possess him, which made me hate him—and hate myself even more.

He paced for a moment, then took a deep breath, went back to his car, and grabbed a backpack and a duffel bag.

Warning bells made my ears ring, my muscles tense, the threat of him in my home, on my grounds, making me edgy. In the beginning, people would try to come up my mountain, try to take photos or break in, wanting what was mine. They couldn’t have it, though. No one could. This was all I had.

I went straight for my gun cabinet, pressed in the code, then pulled out my favorite rifle. I hadn’t been able to protect my mother, but I damn sure would protect what was mine now.

CHAPTER FIVE

Cyrus

I had lost my mind. Traipsing around a fucking mountain with duffel bags of food and ice packs that had probably melted wasn’t the best idea I’d ever come up with. But then, I’d never really been known for my good ideas.

I just…hadn’t had it in me to turn around and go back. I wanted Crow to have his food, wanted him to know kindness, and strangely, I had to be the one to do it. Not that anyone else was jumping at the opportunity, but even if they had, I needed it to be me.

There had to be another way onto his property, right?

The land had been cleared on the other side of the fence, but where I was walking now the trees were dense, casting shadows all around me.

I told myself it would be okay as I watched my cell to make sure I continued to have a signal. I could always use find my car to get back. Plus, so far, I was just following the fence, wondering if it miraculously went on forever. As I kept going, I noticed the trees and brush on the other side of the fence begin to thicken, but the more I walked, the more determined I became. When it came to stupid shit, I never backed down. It was being smart and healthy that had always been more of a challenge for me.

Who would miss me if I was gone? Why did it matter if I took care of myself when there was nothing grounding me to this life?

I shook those thoughts from my head, if only because my mom would have hated them. She might have been the only person to ever love me, but I knew with every fiber of my being that she had, despite how much her demons had weighed on her. The only reason I wanted more was because she’d wanted more for me.

So I continued to pretend I knew what I was doing, that this wasn’t dangerous, that I actually had a chance of getting to Crow.

And what would I do if I found him? It wasn’t as if he would want anything to do with me.

Finally, the fence ended, and I wound around it, heading in the direction his house had to be, weaving my way around the pines, blue spruces, and Douglas firs, the shadows growing. Afternoon was fading, bleeding into evening as the sun began to go down. I heard a noise to my left, my head jerking in that direction, but I didn’t see anything.

There were bears out here, there had to be, yet there I was, walking around with food and also being food. But instead of turning back, I kept going, kept chasing a feeling I would never find, like that high I used to get when I snorted drugs up my nose—needing more, needing to feel, needing an elusive something I could never see or make out, but that I spent my life missing and knowing was there.

I felt eyes on me, which made my skin crawl. There was another noise, and I knew something was out there. What kind of animal was stalking me? My heart sped up, nerves prickling along my skin. I looked at my phone again, only to realize I’d lost the signal while I wasn’t paying attention.

“Fuck.”

I turned around, heading back. The eyes on me continued to follow, and every now and again, a crackle of a branch or movement.

I sped up, clutching the duffel. Maybe I could use it as a weapon.

When there was another noise that sounded closer, I whipped my head in that direction, heart in my throat, my breathing doing a better job at running away from me than I was doing at escaping whatever was after me.

I probably wasn’t supposed to run. That would just make it come after me faster. But I picked up the pace anyway, a slow jog now, telling myself it was a compromise between running and walking. Was I going in the right direction? I thought so. All I’d done was turn around, but it felt easy to get lost out here, easy to get things mixed up, and though I didn’t have much to live for, getting torn apart by a bear or a fucking wolf wasn’t in my top-five choices of ways to go.

It was getting darker, and this was really fucking dumb. I kept moving, looking at my phone, and damn it, still no signal.

I stepped on something, twisting my foot the wrong way, pain immediately shooting through my ankle as I fell to the ground. Everything went silent around me except my own breathing and my heart, which were both somehow too quiet but also like a marching band. When there was another crackle of twigs breaking, I reached out, trying to grab anything close, and found a thick branch. It was likely what made me fall, but hopefully it would now help me fight off whatever was out there.

“Hello?” I called out, because maybe the wild animal hunting me just wanted to talk? Jesus, I was ridiculous.

There was a rustling sound to my right, getting closer and closer. The sun had gone down enough that the sky was dark but bathed in an almost deep red, and on that background, an upright figure revealed itself—and while large, he wasn’t a bear.

Crow’s midnight eyes were angry and wild, brown hair a mess of dark waves hanging down around his face. He growled, sounding like an animal, my heart bursting as I crawled backward. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out, and of course, he didn’t talk either, just took slow, predatory steps toward me.

Oh, my heart was back, thudding against my chest, blood rushing through my ears, and strangely, I pictured it like that redness in the sky.

“I wasn’t… I didn’t…”

He lunged toward me.

I swung the branch, but he caught it easily, jerking it from my hand, another pain stabbing into me there. Crow threw it into the woods, and for the first time, I noticed the rifle on his back.

I closed my eyes, wondering if he was going to aim it at me, if he would beat me or rip into me the way I’d thought a bear would, but instead, it was the duffel he snatched from my hands. I opened my eyes as he tore it open, looking inside, rummaging through it. He stopped, eyes meeting mine, and cocked his head.

Seconds ago, I didn’t see any humanity in his stare, but it now softened, something else trying to sneak through, before it was wiped away again. This time, he ripped the backpack off me, going through that too, then lowering his arm and letting it dangle there.

“I brought your food. I worried you might need it…but I couldn’t get in, so I…” So I thought I would traipse along the mountain with nothing to protect myself, trying to find his house without dying, and then expecting him to welcome me with open arms? Crow didn’t live up here because he wanted people coming to see him. He lived up there because he wanted to be alone. “I’m sorry. I invaded your space. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but I just… I don’t like the way they treat you.”

He frowned, words still not falling from his lips. Could he speak? I didn’t even know if he could anymore. Maybe he’d been quiet for ten or twelve years, since his dad had gone to prison or since he was up here alone, and now his voice didn’t work the same.

Crow pointed to my ankle, a dark shadow in an even more darkening night.

“Sprained or broken. I don’t know. It hurts like hell, though.”

Crow ran a hand through his hair, then paced in front of me as if he didn’t know what to do.

“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying again, though I couldn’t say what I was apologizing for this time. Everything. Being me.

He stopped, watched me, and finally, looked away as he zipped up the bags. He put my backpack on, then slung the duffel over his shoulder.

I held my breath as he came toward me, took my hands, and pulled me to my feet.

Oh…oh. He was helping me? Likely because he didn’t want me to die on his property, but still.

“Jesus,” I said, noticing the bruises and scrapes on his hands, but he ignored me.

So…was this all we were doing? Standing here? I took a step, a yelp escaping me as pain shot through my ankle. He groaned, then stood there looking at me like I was an idiot. Did he want to help me?

I tried to put my arm around him, but Crow’s hand shot out, clutching my wrist, stopping me. My good leg nearly gave out, and I sucked in a sharp breath, fear expanding inside me.

“I don’t think I can walk. I’m sorry. I’m not sure how to do this without touching you.”

He shook his head, and for a moment, I thought he was going to walk away and leave me there, but then he swiftly lifted me into his arms, like I was a bride.

“You can’t carry me,” I told him, but Crow ignored me and started walking. He had two bags, a gun, and me as he stomped through the woods, heading back to my car, I assumed. “I walked miles.” Which was a reminder that I’d fucked up and this had been the stupidest thing I could have done. Hell, the fence had ended, and I still couldn’t find his house. “And what about your hands?” They were injured, yet he was going to haul me around?

Like I knew he would, Crow ignored me and kept going. It felt like we were heading a different direction than I’d come from, but it was also dark and I couldn’t see a damn thing. I had no idea how he could, which made my chest get tighter and tighter.

He was taking me somewhere to kill me, or to leave me, and there was nothing I could do about it. And while I was nervous about that, I wasn’t as scared as I knew I should be.

CHAPTER SIX

Crow

I liked the way he smelled—like sweat, sugar, and maybe a little bit of fear. Part of my brain knew him fearing me shouldn’t turn me on, but I figured there was always something about me that wasn’t normal. Maybe I was born with it, or maybe it had been planted inside me by Chosen, and that had been the only thing he’d watered so it continued to grow.

“Maybe you can put me down and just help me walk instead?”

My hands were throbbing, but I was good at ignoring pain. Chosen had trained me well in that regard. I was lucky I hadn’t done more damage than I had.

When I didn’t respond, he added, “Are you going to kill me?”

I continued to ignore him, working my way through the quickly darkening woods. There was a lot to fear on my mountain, and yes, I was one of those things, but right now, I had no plans of killing him. He’d brought me food and defended me at the store. While I didn’t need him or anyone else to take care of me, I couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something nice for me.

“It might look like I’ll go down easily, but I’m a lot tougher than I appear. I’ve been taking care of myself for most of my life, and you won’t be the first man I’ve fought off.”

That nearly made me stumble, thinking about someone hurting him, dimming those already sad eyes and making him suffer.

“Ouch. You’re hurting me,” he said, making me automatically loosen my grip.

Shit. Something was wrong with me. Thinking about someone putting their hands on him had made me tighten my own in anger.

“My name is Cyrus. I work at the hardware store, which you know. You saw me there. Sorry. I ramble when I’m nervous.”

I quickened my pace. Being out here at night wasn’t safe for him, and it would be harder for me to keep him safe in the dark.

“I’m new to Tranquility…you probably know that too. I was raised by my mom. Her name was Cypress. Isn’t that a gorgeous name? She was great. The best person I’ve ever known.”

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

“She was also an addict. Losing her killed me. You would think that would stop me from turning to drugs myself, but it didn’t. I just…couldn’t function in a world without her. It didn’t help that my ex-boyfriend—”

A growl escaped my lips despite how hard I tried to hold it down. I knew what he was doing—he was trying to make me feel a connection to him so I didn’t kill him, but what the little lamb didn’t know was that I had no plans to hurt him.

“Great. You’re a homophobe? Leave it to me to get kidnapped by a homophobic mountain man who doesn’t speak. I feel like Little Red Riding Hood. What was I thinking, trying to bring you food? That was you stalking me the whole time, wasn’t it?”

Tell him. Tell him you’re not homophobic and you’re not going to kill him.

But the truth was, I would if I had to.

I hefted him higher in my arms, which were beginning to burn.

“I’m not really scared. That’s not normal. I don’t know if I believe you want to kill me or not, but either way, I’m not really afraid. I only said all that because that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

He wasn’t afraid to die? I wasn’t either, but then, I’d always known I wasn’t like most people. And maybe, the first time I’d laid eyes on him, I’d known he wasn’t either.

His body relaxed in my arms. Cyrus didn’t speak anymore, and I saw him look at my cabin getting closer and closer. He sucked in a sharp breath, his hand fisting in my shirt.

I didn’t know what I was doing, why I’d brought him to my home. No one else had ever been inside it, not since I’d torn it down and rebuilt it. The walls had only known me, and now I’d brought this man here. I was angry at myself for it, confused at why I’d done it.

He brought you food.

I eased him down onto the porch, the little lamb standing on one foot as I unlocked the door. When it was open, he tried to take a step forward, but I held his arm and shook my head.

Everything inside me rebelled against this, my discomfort growing, making my gut ache. This was more difficult than I thought it would be. He was an outsider. They hadn’t been allowed on our grounds when we were Enlightened, and that was one thing I’d held on to since.

“Do you want me to wait here?” he asked, speaking to me in a normal tone of voice—not yelling as if he thought that because I chose not to speak, I couldn’t hear—and he also didn’t talk in that condescending way that said he thought I was stupid.

Instead of using words, I lifted him again and brought him inside. Cyrus huffed as I dropped him onto the couch. I watched him as he looked around—at the empty fireplace, the log walls, couches and chairs, the open-concept kitchen behind us with a bar that only had one stool and a small table with only one chair. One was all I would ever need, and having more or less didn’t take away from or add anything to the space. I kept more furniture in the living room and bedrooms simply because the empty space made the house echo uncomfortably.

“This cabin isn’t very scary-mountain-man of you,” he said, speaking to me in a way no one ever had before. I waited for him to ramble something about it being lonely, but what he landed on was, “It’s perfect,” with a soft wistfulness I’d never heard aimed at something about me or that was mine.

He stood up, but I grabbed his arms and forced him to sit down again, narrowing my eyes at him. I couldn’t handle the thought of him having free rein around my space.

“Don’t leave the couch. Got it.” Cyrus crossed his arms.

I went to the kitchen, watching him the whole time. I set my rifle on the counter and started unloading the bags. He’d had ice packs in there, but they had long since melted. Still, I put the food away quickly, then got a frozen pack from my freezer and a first-aid kit. I kept supplies for injuries because I’d gotten plenty over the years. I never knew when I would need them.

I sat on the handmade coffee table in front of him, grabbed his foot, and lifted it to my lap.

“Oh,” Cyrus said softly. The sound went straight to my neglected cock.

I took his shoe off, then his sock. His foot was already bruised and purple, his ankle swollen.

“I hope it’s not broken,” he said, and I shook my head. I didn’t think it was. Likely just a bad sprain. My fingers brushed over his foot. It was easy to break the bone there, but the swelling and purple skin led me to believe it was more in his ankle.

“Tell me where it hurts,” I forced myself to say, head down, my hair a veil between us. The little lamb gasped. Because I’d spoken, or at the rough, unused sound of my voice? I did speak to myself sometimes, or to the animals or vegetables I grew, so I didn’t forget how. I also read out loud to myself, wanting to keep my voice usable, though mostly I chose not to.

With my beat-up hands, I pressed lightly on the bone along the side of his foot, looking at him through my hair.

Cyrus shook his head. Our gazes stayed locked, my fingers slowly working up his foot. He didn’t use words at first, but I could tell that the higher I got, the more pain he was in, until I reached his ankle and he said, “Yes. There.”

I took the ice pack and placed it on his skin. He trembled, and I looked down. Looked at the foot of another man resting on my knee. At how pale it was compared to my sun-kissed tan. His nails were perfectly trimmed. He had a slight dusting of hair on his big toe. Veins ran the length of his foot, attached to fuzzy legs.

It was strange seeing someone touch me this way. I’d fucked Hillary when I was sixteen. She had been nineteen and was the newest on the path to Enlightenment. She’d only been there six months when it started. I was drawn to her because she was the closest person to my age I’d ever spent any amount of time with. What I’d really wanted was a friend, but Chosen had said that even though she wasn’t worthy of me, he thought I should enjoy her physically. Men were sexual beings. We needed to fuck, and he wanted me to start early. That was something else my mother hadn’t known about.

I’d gone without until I was twenty-one, and then it had been Debra. I paid her for sex, but it had only taken once for me to realize that much like Hillary, it felt wrong. Ever since then, it had only been Bruce. But that was just an action, a means to an end, a way to have an orgasm. It didn’t feel intimate the way his foot on my lap did.

I hated the fact that I loved fucking so much, that I always yearned to bury my cock in someone, because it made me feel like Chosen. He’d slept with most of the women in The Enlightened, acted like it made him powerful.

Cyrus’s foot fell off my lap when I shoved to my feet.

“Ouch. Shit,” he cursed, but I ignored him, walking away, needing space. It was one thing to do that with Debra or Bruce, give them money and put my dick in them, but it was something else entirely to have someone here I wanted, someone I coveted.

I didn’t want to touch him again.

I wanted to touch him everywhere.

“Wrap it,” I growled with my back to him.

“Why the fuck did you do that?”

I turned to see him with his foot on the couch. He grabbed the bandage from the kit and fumbled, trying to wrap it himself.

Leave him. This isn’t your responsibility. He is nothing to you.

But my feet moved of their own accord. I jerked the bandage from his hands and began wrapping his foot. Once I had it covered, I propped the limb on a pillow so it was elevated, pressed the ice to it again, then stalked to the chair on the other side of the room to watch him.

I craved space as much as I craved his skin, but I couldn’t leave him alone in my home.

“Why did you bring me here?” When I didn’t respond, he added, “Are you taking me to my car tomorrow? It’s my left foot, so I can drive.” At that, I gave a simple nod. “So…I’m supposed to sit here all night with you watching me?”

I ignored him, and he sighed, maneuvering himself so he lay down.

We sat there in silence, for an hour, maybe two. He watched me, and I watched him, wondering what he saw in my eyes. Something wild? Angry? Wrong? Strange? Did he know that his gaze bled with sadness? That I could see that he was even more alone than I was? That for the first time in my life, I almost felt like I saw myself in someone else? That made me want to hate him…made me want to possess him too.

“I understand it…why you like it out here. Somehow the seclusion and quiet helps silence the voices in my head.”

My pulse punched against my skin. Words felt about to escape me in a way that was foreign to me.

But I didn’t have to respond because Cyrus closed his eyes and went to sleep.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. When the ice got warm, I grabbed another pack and laid it against his ankle. I took in his flawless skin, the freckles on his nose. What would it be like to be inside this man? My hands twitched, and I forced myself to return to my chair, eyes open all night, taking in every angle of him, every dip and valley, the way he breathed and mumbled soft sounds.

Maybe I was more like Chosen than I thought, because part of me wanted to keep him here and never let him leave.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Cyrus

My eyes fluttered open to find Crow still sitting in the same chair, watching me. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he’d been there all night, that he hadn’t slept and had kept vigil over me, yes, but he also wasn’t comfortable with me in his cabin—if you could call it that. Cabins felt small to me, and this…wasn’t.

Had anyone ever been here? Did he have secret mountain-man friends? Women he brought up here to fuck? Even as I asked myself those questions, I somehow knew the answer was no. That no one had been here in an extremely long time except for me.

“Why?” I asked, unable to hold back the question. “I’m not your concern. You could have helped me to my car and let me drive home last night. Why did you bring me here?”

He stood silently, not even the chair willing to make a creaking sound beneath him. He walked over to me, then gave me an up-nod like he wanted me to stand up. When I didn’t, he reached for me swiftly, my instincts making me flinch even though deep in my heart, I didn’t believe Crow would hurt me. I didn’t believe he would hurt anyone unless they gave him a reason to, and then, like with Billy at the store yesterday, all bets were off.

It made him stop, though. His head cocked slightly, but I didn’t think he realized he did it. His face hardened, his mouth tightening into a straight line. He grabbed me and jerked me to my feet…well, foot. “Jesus Christ. Someone got up on the wrong side of the chair this morning,” I joked, but of course I didn’t get a laugh in return.

He gave a jerky nod toward the door.

“I have to piss.” He closed his eyes and let out a breath as if he was tired of me. “You’re the one who brought me here. Don’t treat me like shit because you’re sick of me.” It was something I was used to. I wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. While I was pretty steady now, my mood swings could be a lot—okay one day and then unable to pull myself out of bed the next, and when I did struggle, my mood swings were often cycling rapidly, so I was all over the place, and people around me had no idea what to expect. Mental illness was a bitch. I took medication for it, but it had plagued me for most of my life. People had judged me for it, walked away from me because of it, looked at me like I was broken because of it. The thought of Crow doing that made my skin prickle more. That shouldn’t be the case. It shouldn’t matter to me what this man thought of me, but it did.

I began to limp toward the door. Crow let me get a couple of steps in before his fingers wrapped around my wrist. He gave a small shake of his head, and then without a word, lifted me again.

“Sweet Jesus. I can walk. I’m not helpless.”

He didn’t listen, of course, instead walking me down the hallway and into the bathroom. He set me on my feet, then stood with his arms crossed, waiting.

“You want to watch me pee?” He rolled his eyes in response. “You really don’t trust me in your space at all, do you?” Because he wasn’t used to having someone in his space. Because this was his, and he’d been through so fucking much in his life, and he’d been here alone for ten-ish years. It hit me then how big it really was that Crow had brought me here at all. “I’m sorry I invaded your mountain…and that I hurt my ankle, so you felt like you had to bring me here. I know this is sacred to you—your home. I’ll go as soon as I’m done.”

I hobbled to the toilet, feeling Crow’s eyes on me. His eyes were always on me, and it was unnerving and welcome at the same time. I unbuttoned and unzipped my shorts, pulled my dick out, and began to piss. I wasn’t shy of my body. There had been times I was so high, I’d strip for my ex and all his friends, dance for them and blow them, always the life of the party, always the center of attention. Eddie’s slut boy—the reason he kept me around and the reason they all liked me.

When I finished, I scooted to the sink. It put me close to Crow, so close that I could feel the heat radiating off him. The scent of Douglas firs, musk, and fresh air filled my senses again.

I expected him to move, to take a step back, but instead, when I turned the faucet on and began washing, he reached out, brushing my cheek with the back of his hand.

I sucked in a sharp breath, watched him in the mirror. His gaze didn’t meet mine there, instead looking at how he touched me.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Didn’t want him to stop.

Crow fingered a lock of my hair next, rubbing it between his index finger and his thumb. I trembled when his large, warm hand went back to my cheek. I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into it, nuzzling into him, because this touch felt so fucking different from anything I’d felt before—like he was in awe of me, like he was cherishing me and taking care of me. Like he didn’t feel worthy of me, and that was fucking crazy because I wasn’t shit. There wasn’t and had never been anything special about me.

“Crow,” whispered past my lips, my stupid decision breaking the moment and making him pull back. With a sigh, I turned off the water. “I can walk,” I snapped when he tried to pick me up. God, what was wrong with me? I was hurt because this man I didn’t know didn’t want me? That he’d stopped touching me?

For the first time, Crow listened. He kept close as I limped toward the living room, and when I almost stumbled into the wall, he stopped me and slowly put his arm around me as if asking my permission.

I nodded because I didn’t want to fall. When we got back into the living room, I leaned against the back of the couch, staring off into the kitchen area while he grabbed my shoes and socks, placing the ones I wouldn’t need in the backpack I’d brought with me. He nodded for me to sit on the arm of the couch, and I did, not letting myself look at him while he put my sock and shoe on my good foot. His fingers brushed against the bandage on the other, but I didn’t tremble this time, didn’t feel much of anything, if I was being honest.

He tried to put his arm around me again, and I stiffened, though I wanted Crow’s hands on me. He pulled back, gave me a look that said not to move, then disappeared into the hallway.

He’d left me alone.

What was he doing?

Seconds later, he came out with a pair of crutches that would have been really fucking convenient to have earlier. “Oh, now you bring these out?”

He shrugged and sized them correctly for me, then handed them over.

Crow took the bags and followed me outside. The sun was bright up here, but the trees did a great job of offering shade.

I took in the grounds in a way I couldn’t last night—Crow’s large cabin, a barn, and another building, wood he was clearly cutting, large gardens filled with vegetables, and flowers planted everywhere. There was a greenhouse too. It was like his own world. “It’s incredible,” I whispered, unable to hold the words back, but instead of replying, he just nudged me on my way. Again, it stung.

I started down the gravel road, but he stopped me and nodded toward his truck. Oh, that made sense. Easier than hopping all the way to my car.

The drive was quiet except for the sounds of the engine and gravel crunching beneath the tires. When we got to the gate, Crow got out to press the code in to open it. Had he done all this on his own? Was it even possible to do all this on his own? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

He came back to me, opened my door, and helped me out.

“I can handle it from here.”

He ignored me, walking with me to my car.

I got in, tried to hand him back the crutches, but he shook his head.

“You should keep them,” I told him. “I’m sure you have them in case anything happens to you out here.”

He just put them in the back seat.

I waited, wishing he would say something, needing words from him again, needing fucking something, but only silence and Crow’s now detached brown gaze met me.

I closed the door, started the car, and pulled away. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, he was already gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Crow

Me: Tonight. Eight o’clock.

Bruce: You know I always have room in my schedule for you.

He ended the text with a smiley-face emoji. I would never understand using those. I had never used one myself, and as big of an asshole as it made me, I had to fight myself not to let things like that annoy me.

Bruce was easy. I’d found him online, and we always met at a hotel outside Tranquility, where he’d take my dick, then my money, and didn’t require words or anything else from me. And ever since Cyrus left yesterday, I was on edge and needed to fuck.

I could smell Cyrus in my home, smell his sugar and musk on my couch, and I’d sat there, sniffing the cushion while jerking off, but it didn’t take the edge off.

I had never wanted inside someone as much as I wanted inside him.

I had never wanted anyone at all, not once in my life until now, and it had me angry at him, wanting nothing to do with him because I didn’t know how to feel anything after so long, but it also made me want to go into Tranquility and claim him.

I didn’t understand it, none of this. What was it about him? I could build anything, fix anything. I’d learned technology on my own and the internet on my own. We’d always had it here, but no one was allowed to use it except Chosen. But I could make sense of all those things. That was how my brain worked, how I functioned, but this want? This craving I had for him? The way I’d touched him and cared for him…it was wrong and foreign to me on every level.

My arms ached from all the manual labor I’d done today, but still I swung the ax one more time, let it get stuck in the wood, and walked away.

I went into my art room, thought about him while I washed my hands. Felt his soft skin against mine and remembered the way he’d trembled against me.

“I’m sorry I invaded your mountain…and that I hurt my ankle, so you felt like you had to bring me here. I know this is sacred to you—your home. I’ll go as soon as I’m done.”

He’d apologized for bringing me food, and then again for hurting himself, as if he’d done it on purpose. I was the one who’d stalked him and let him wander before I helped him. He was just trying to be nice, but I was…me.

And when I’d pulled away, he’d felt rejected. I’d hurt him again, and that filled me with rage at myself for paining him and allowing myself to feel anything at all.

I pulled out a canvas, hoping it helped to clear my head, but I didn’t start with my paints. Instead, I plucked a charcoal from my supplies and began to draw, trying to convey how soft his hair was, and every curve of his face.

*

My hands shook as I knocked on the hotel door.

Bruce opened it a moment later, his red hair messy and a smirk on his lip. “Hey, baby,” he said, flirting. He always spoke to me like that, in ways I’d never spoken to another person but knew people off the mountain did. It was just another thing I didn’t understand, and that frustrated me. “It’s been a while. Been missing that big cock of yours.”

My skin crawled because it wasn’t him I wanted; it was Cyrus. Talking during sex bothered me. I’d tried with Hillary, but I was sixteen years old, confused, and didn’t want to do what I was doing.

I nodded, and Bruce knew that meant I wanted him to take off his clothes. We didn’t kiss, didn’t touch or cuddle or hold each other afterward. In all the years I’d been taking him, I’d never spoken a single word to Bruce. I fucked him hard and then left, and he liked me for it. He kept my secret because he liked my cock and loved knowing he got to screw the Tranquility Mountain Man.

You spoke to Cyrus.

I fought to tamp down that thought.

Bruce stripped, and then asked, “How do you want me?”

We never fucked in the bed, so I took the condom and bottle of lube he’d set on the table, and led him to the small hotel-room couch, where I bent him forward so he lay over the arm. I slicked my fingers, started with one, then two, opening him up and getting him ready for me.

He moaned and made noises, begging for more, asking for my dick. After pulling out of him, I opened my jeans and shoved those and my underwear down mid-thigh. I never went further than that. I slid the condom down my erection, lubed up, then thrust into him swiftly.

“Fuck yes. I needed this,” Bruce said, and I did my best to tune him out while I took him. I slammed into him over and over and over again, hands on his hips, fingers digging into his skin.

Cyrus’s voice, his soft, “Crow…” was suddenly playing in my head, making me slam into Bruce harder, making me pull him up so he stood, his back against my chest, my arm around his body, hand on his throat as I railed him harder.

“So fucking good. God, you’re in a mood today. Harder.”

I shook my head, wanting his voice out of it, wanting to hear Cyrus say my name again. Wanting it to be his hole I was inside, his neck beneath my hand as I squeezed in a way I knew would get Bruce off but wouldn’t hurt him.

“Crow,” Cyrus said again inside my head, causing my body to slap even harder against Bruce’s.

I put more pressure on his throat, using my other hand to jerk him off. His smell was all wrong. His skin felt all wrong. I wished for the gentle hint of sugar, pictured big gray eyes that held a world of sadness, the way his mouth parted slightly when he slept…

My orgasm sneaked up on me, bowling me over as my body went rigid and I filled the condom with my desire for Cyrus.

Bruce came too, crying out, his slick release on my hand, which felt wrong there too.

“God, I want that again. I wish you’d stay and do it again.”

But I didn’t stay. I never did. I wiped his cum on a towel, pulled my jeans up and fastened them. I tugged five hundred dollars from my pocket, two more than he charged me, because I felt guilty fucking him while imagining Cyrus.

Then, like always, I was gone.

CHAPTER NINE

Cyrus

“Tell me where it hurts.”

Two months later, I couldn’t get the rough, gritty sound of Crow’s voice out of my head. It was all I’d thought about. Well, that, and the feel of him touching me, the gentle way he’d stroked my face as if I were something precious to him and he didn’t want to break me, though not in a way that made me feel like he thought I was weak. Plenty of men had made me feel that way, but with Crow it felt like I was something to cherish, like I meant something to him.

Which was absolutely ridiculous. The two times he’d been to town since I’d left his place, he’d proven that I was out of my mind and that him caring about me was just wishful thinking. Both times he wouldn’t even make eye contact. He’d ignored me when I’d tried to speak to him, to tell him I got confirmation it was a bad sprain, no fracture, and I just had to wear one of those special boots. I’d used the crutches I’d gotten from the doctor and had tried to give Crow’s back to him, but he’d only pushed them away and walked out.

And I was the idiot who had my feelings hurt about it. When would I ever learn? I had never truly mattered to anyone except my mom, and I never would.

I was off my crutches now and out of the boot. Would he care?

Sometimes Eddie made you feel like you mattered. He at least made you feel wanted.

I rolled over in my bed, hoping somehow the movement would make those thoughts fall out. I’d been having them more and more lately. Crow might not want me, but Eddie would, his friends as well, and it would help, even if only for a moment.

“That’s the dumbest thing you can do. When will you ever learn?” I asked myself, my words echoing in the empty room.

I wondered if Crow ever did that. Did he speak to himself? Just talk out loud in the cabin or in the woods? His voice had been rough, but I figured he’d had to use it some for him to still have it. But what did I know about those things?

With a sigh, I forced myself to sit on the edge of the mattress. I didn’t want to go to work, just wanted to sit in my bed all day, but I knew I had to go.

I plucked my antidepressant and mood stabilizer off my nightstand, took the pills with my water bottle, and was already waiting for the day to be over.

*

I couldn’t stop pacing. I’d done something really fucking stupid, and now that mistake was about to show up on my doorstep.

I wrung my hands, my stomach in knots. But I needed this. Needed something. Was it so bad to want to feel good? And Eddie was easy. Eddie always came because he knew that once he had me again, he could get me high and all that would matter was him and the drugs.

My eyes shot to the door when there was a knock.

Don’t do this. Don’t answer.

But how could I call him, then let the man jump on a plane, only to ignore him now? I reminded myself I’d told him I didn’t want drugs, that I didn’t want to fuck, that I just needed a friend. After everything we’d been through, Eddie should be able to give me that much.

I cleared my throat, made sure I had my happiest smile on my face, and opened the door. “Hey, you.”

He was dressed in slacks and a button-up shirt, as usual. Eddie had money. A lot of it. And he used that money to have a lot of fun.

“Jesus, Cyrus. A small town called Tranquility? What the fuck are you doing here?” He stepped inside, held my face in his hands, and kissed me, but I pulled back.

“I like it. The name is cute, and I needed a change.”

“Well, this is certainly a change.”

I went deeper into my living room, and he closed the door.

“It’s dark in here. This apartment is…let’s say old.”

“Christ, Eddie. Don’t start already. I didn’t call you here to critique everything about me.”

His blond hair was perfectly styled, again, same as always. He gave me the grin that always got him his way. His smooth skin was flawless, no stubble on his face. He looked like he belonged on a runway, and I never understood why a man like him had paid me any attention.

Because he can get what he wants out of you. Because he knows you’re dying for attention, and he uses that to control you.

“You’re right, babe. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your little apartment here. It suits you.”

A thinly veiled dig. This was definitely a mistake.

“Have a seat. Do you want something to drink?”

“Do you have any wine?”

I shook my head. “I stopped drinking in rehab. No alcohol. No drugs. Nothing. It’s been eighteen months.” I beamed, proud of my accomplishment.

He huffed. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious.”

“Nothing at all? You haven’t touched anything since that night?”

I closed my eyes, trying to forget that. It had been the worst night of my life outside of when I lost my mom. ODing was…scary. What I remembered of it, at least. “I’ll get you some ice water.”

I was surprised when Eddie didn’t argue or call me on not answering his question. I ignored the pang in my gut at him not believing I could stay sober. It sucked not being believed.

When I went back into the living room, I handed him his glass. Eddie was sitting on the couch, and patted the seat beside him.

Don’t sit there, don’t sit there, don’t sit there.

I sat there. Of course I did.

“So…what are you doing now?”

“I work at a hardware store. It’s not the best job in the world, but it pays the bills.”

We rambled on for a little while about random things. He told me what our old friends were up to, how great his business was going, how much money he was making, and about all his wild parties. Eddie had always thrown the best parties. Everyone wanted to go to them. Coke and sex everywhere.

I shifted as my leg began to bounce.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Eddie asked, pushing my hair behind my ear. It felt wrong, but he’d literally jumped on a plane to come see me. Shouldn’t I try to be nice?

“Nothing. I just…” Just what? I didn’t know.

“I’ve missed you, did you know that?” Eddie continued on because he didn’t really care what was wrong with me anyway. “It broke my heart when you left.”

“I almost died. I went into rehab.” He made it sound like I just up and walked out.

“I know, and I was worried sick about you. I kept trying to get in contact with you, and all you did was ignore me. How do you think that made me feel? When my boyfriend almost died and then dropped me like I didn’t matter.”

That was kind of a dick move on my part. Eddie had done a lot for me, and we had been dating. I shouldn’t have dropped him cold turkey. I should have explained to him and—no!

“You know I love you, Cyrus. We were good together. No one else would understand your quirks and moodiness.”

He’d never understood it either, but then, he’d stayed with me, hadn’t he? That meant something.

“You love the way I set you free. The way I let you be my little slut without any judgment. I never judged you for any of the things that are wrong with you.”

He brushed the back of his hand along my cheek the way Crow had, but it felt different, made my skin crawl. He was already manipulating me, already trying to get inside my head, and it was working. It would be so easy to go back with Eddie. To let him take care of me, make me feel wanted, and feed me drugs so I could forget all the other shit.

“I brought you a present.”

He pulled his hand back and stuck it in his pocket. I already knew what it was before he pulled out the small baggie of white powder.

My whole body tensed up, need ballooning inside me. I didn’t feel unwanted when I did coke. I didn’t feel alone. I didn’t even feel depressed or any of the other things that always weighed me down.

I didn’t speak as Eddie opened the baggie and set it on the table. He tugged his kit out next, a small leather container with a mirror and a straw inside.

I licked my lips when he shook out a line on the mirror.

Fidgeted while I watched him suck it into his nose.

Sweat beaded along my skin.

My gut cramped.

I wanted it so fucking bad that I thought I would burst out of my skin.

He laid out another line. “Here you go, babe. I’ll help.”

I was trembling, my stomach cramping even harder with need. He held it out for me, but I swatted it out of his hand, making his kit and the white powder drop to the carpet.

“What the fuck, Cyrus!”

“I told you I’m clean now. I don’t want that shit.” Sweat dripped down my temples, my heart beating my chest like a prized boxer did a punching bag.

“Okay. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to have it.” He gave me that smile again that made me feel like spiders were crawling over my skin. “You just wanted me, huh? You missed me and how well I take care of you. You know no one will ever want you like I do. No one will ever understand you the way I do.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine, but I didn’t kiss him back. “I flew all the way out here for you. Who else would do that? Who else would love you that much? You owe me something for how good I am to you. For all the things I’ve done for you.” He kissed me again, his hands smooth on my face.

This was wrong. This wasn’t what I’d wanted. “I told you, I just needed a friend.” Why hadn’t I gone to Melody? She’d given me her number, still talked to me every day at Tranquil Brew. She wanted to be my friend. But then, she didn’t really know me.

“You’re not the kinda guy men are just friends with, babe. And I hate to break it to you, but that’s not worth my flight out here.”

Anger reared up inside me, fierce and unexpected. I shoved Eddie away from me. It caught him off guard, and he tumbled off the couch, hitting the back of his head on the coffee table.

“You stupid motherfucker.” His pupils were huge, dilated with a fury I’d never seen in him before. He shoved to his feet, fist flying through the air, connecting with my face. Pain exploded where he’d hit me.

I was still sitting on the couch, my eye already swelling. Eddie stood over me, and I kicked up, connecting with his balls. He cried out and fell to the floor.

“What the fuck, Cyrus. You stupid fucking piece of shit. You’re nothing. Less than nothing.”

“Get out!” My whole body was shaking with rage, with hurt. “Get the fuck out of my apartment!”

When he didn’t move, I stood and began dragging him to the door. Eddie shoved me off him and got to his feet.

“You’ll never be anything without me. No one else will ever want you.” And then he stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

My face was aching, tears streaming down my cheeks. I wanted to climb into bed and never get out. I needed to ice my eye, but instead I crawled to the door and locked it so Eddie couldn’t come back. Then I broke the mirror and the straw, burying them in the trash can. I got my vacuum out to get rid of any remnants of the coke so I wasn’t lying there trying to sniff my carpet.

I fell into bed, even lonelier than I had been before calling Eddie.

CHAPTER TEN

Crow

I could feel the snow in the air even though it hadn’t arrived yet. My freezers were stocked with meat, the cabinets and extra storage packed with dry and canned foods. The three fridges were full as well. I had a generator set up in case I lost power, gas to run it, enough firewood to get me through two winters, and almost everything else I would need for the next few months.

My truck bumped along the road as I headed down for my last trip to town.

The moment I left the gate, a heaviness weighed down on me.

The winter would be good for me, though. I needed the space, needed more time to pass where I didn’t have to see him. Where he didn’t try to talk to me and I didn’t have to fight myself so hard to stay away. No good would come of him trying to get close to me. All it would do was hurt him, and deep down, I knew Cyrus had more pain in his life than most people. Maybe that was why he seemed to be drawn to me, but what he didn’t understand was that I didn’t have anything to give another person. I didn’t even know how to be friends with someone—not anymore, if I ever had to begin with. And if I were honest with myself, I’d admit I didn’t even need to go to town today. I was already overstocked with enough supplies to last a lifetime.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about him, this twitch forming in my chest that felt wrong and uneasy because all my thoughts shouldn’t be possessed by him. Obsessed. Possessed. Both fit, and the more time went by, the more it grew.

I went to the hardware store first, not sure if I was relieved or upset that he wasn’t there.

Trying to shove all thoughts of Cyrus out of my head, I went to the grocery store next. Like always, people looked at me and talked about me as I went up and down the aisles. I hadn’t had any trouble with Billy and the guys lately, probably because they were afraid of getting hurt. Still, every now and again, I would have to deal with them, and next time, I hoped I would be able to control myself. If it hadn’t been for Cyrus, I might not have stopped.

I picked up a few things, but the eyes on me made my skin feel too tight, made me want to lash out at them all, if for nothing more than to give them a reason to look at me the way they did.

I checked out, put the bags in my truck, ready to get the fuck out of there, when I felt a tingle at the back of my neck. I looked up to see Cyrus walking out of the pharmacy with a bag in his hand, drowning in a large coat. There was something different about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. He had a beanie covering his head, his gaze angled down, his body looking almost curled in on itself.

It was wrong, entangling myself with him even more, but I slammed the door, boots taking loud, hard steps across the parking lot.

I didn’t know if he heard me or sensed me, but suddenly his head shot up, gaze locking on mine, just as a deep rumble started low in my chest. His hand shot up to cover his face, but it was too late, the black eye all I could see. My teeth grinded together, my nostrils flaring.

“Wh-o.” The single word came out broken, and suddenly, I hated that I didn’t use my voice enough for it to sound right, hated that the rage festering inside me made it hard to get out.

“None of your business.”

“Who?” I managed to push out again. I vibrated with so much anger, I thought my bones would break, just grind to dust right there.

“It’s over, and I dealt with it.”

I didn’t doubt he had. I could feel his strength simmering beneath the surface, like a lion stalking its prey. The brave little lamb had spent a lifetime protecting himself, and still stood tall. Had he ever had someone look after him? Care for him? He’d mentioned his mother being incredible—was she that person? I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life thinking I’d never had someone like that, and not realizing I needed it until I got my mother’s journal and discovered she’d been that person for me.

I’d never wanted to be it for someone else, hadn’t even fathomed that was a possibility for me. People were confusing, frustrating, and I didn’t like them…but I liked him. I’d wanted to take care of him when he’d sprained his ankle, the feeling even more intense now. Whoever did this to him, I would rip them apart with my bare hands.

I growled, low and angry.

Cyrus tried to step around me, but I moved in front of him, blocking his path. He tried to take a step in the other direction, so I did it again.

“I understand it…why you like it out here. Somehow the seclusion and quiet helps silence the voices in my head.”

I took his arm and began tugging him toward my truck.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Cyrus tried to pull out of my grasp, but I didn’t let him, just kept walking as he tried to work himself free. “What the hell, Crow? Unless you want me to kick you in the balls like I did the guy who gave me this black eye, you better tell me what the fuck is going on.”

He’d kicked him. I had to bite the inside of my cheek so I didn’t smile. The action nearly had me stumbling because it was so foreign to me. When was the last time I’d smiled? That last time wasn’t something I could think about.

When we got to my truck, I ripped the passenger door open and motioned for him to get inside.

“No.”

I motioned again, but he crossed his arms, bag still in his hand, and stood his ground. “What’s the point? You don’t even know me. What do you care if someone hits me?”

Another growl pushed past my lips because I shouldn’t care. But I did.

“Maybe I like to be roughed up. Maybe we were fucking and he—”

I pressed my hand over his mouth, unable to hear any more. He was trying to piss me off, trying to get under my skin, and it was working. Voice low, mouth close to his lips, I forced out, “Get in. The fucking. Truck.” Cyrus stilled against me, before a tremble ran the length of his body. I inhaled a deep breath, taking in the scent of him. The sweetness that was Cyrus and the fear, wrapped up in desire, was a heady combination that made my cock throb. “Now.”

When I pulled back slightly, our eyes met. He studied me, trying to make sense of this, make sense of me, but it was impossible. I wasn’t right. I was…unexplainable. The man who lived on the fringes.

Whatever he saw made a sigh fall from his lips before he got in.

I took the seat belt and wrapped it around him, clicking it closed.

“Are you trying to keep me from escaping? You know I can press a button.”

But he wouldn’t. I felt that deep in my bones. He wouldn’t because he didn’t want to.

I closed the door without a word, walked around, and got into the driver’s seat.

We were silent for the first few minutes as I headed toward the mountain. He fidgeted in his seat, and every once in a while, would raise his hand to cover his eye.

“I’m not weak. I might make stupid decisions, but I’m not weak, and I really can protect myself.”

I didn’t doubt that. Not in the least.

“It was my ex-boyfriend. I was feeling lonely. My mental health had taken a nosedive, and I called him. He also was my supplier when I did drugs. He brought coke, and I almost did it. He wanted to fuck and didn’t want to take no for an answer. I never should have called him. It was my stupid mistake.”

My hands ached as I tightened my hold on the steering wheel. “Don’t call him again.”

He flinched. “Yes, I know I’m an idiot. You don’t have to tell me. Of course he would want something in exchange for coming to see me.”

I nearly drove off the road, my heart pounding against my chest. Cyrus thought I was blaming him.

“Him,” was all I managed to say.

“Him what?”

I shook my head, frustrated with myself. “Not. Your. Fault.”

He didn’t respond, but when I glanced his way, I could see that Cyrus didn’t believe me. All I could think about was some motherfucker’s hands on him. The fact that he was so low that he’d called that prick, and I wondered if it had anything to do with me, with how I’d treated him. Maybe it was my fault.

“Why are you taking me up the mountain? It’s clear you don’t want me there. You haven’t spoken to me in months. You ignore me when I try to talk to you, and now because I have a little black eye—not the worst injury I’ve ever had, FYI—you’re suddenly kidnapping me? He’s gone. It’s been a few days, and he’s texted me, pissed off. I know he’s back in Denver, so you don’t have to trouble yourself with me.”

Trouble myself with him. There was a lot I wanted to do with him, and though in some ways it made things more difficult for me, it didn’t feel like I was troubling myself for him. It was…a need.

Now I just had to figure out what I was going to do with him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cyrus

Crow didn’t respond, but I hadn’t expected him to. I leaned my head against the window, watching the world travel by as he drove to his house. I hadn’t had to get into the truck. The odds of this being another mistake were high, but as angry as he made me, I wanted to go. It didn’t make sense that I could be furious at his caveman form of protecting me, feel hurt that he thought I couldn’t take care of myself, yet also feel wanted and happy, all at the same time.

I wasn’t sure what Crow expected from me. Maybe he felt some strange obligation because I’d brought him food once and he saw me as helpless. Maybe he was queer and wanted nothing more than a hole, the way Eddie had. The difference was, I would welcome it with Crow. I would share my body willingly with him.

Maybe he was trying to recruit me into this cult of one and he still believed those things he’d been raised to believe: That the world was destined to end—whether from God or something else, I couldn’t say. That his father, The Chosen, had been…well, chosen to enlighten those who would be left behind to rebuild better. That following The Chosen was the only way not to be taken out in said ending of the world, and that Crow was supposed to lead, or whatever it was, with his father.

Either way, time would tell, so I closed my eyes and relaxed. Crow would do to me whatever he did. I didn’t feel the need to fight back against him the way I did with Eddie.

I felt the difference when he pulled onto the gravel road. The gate squeaked open, and then he was moving again. I didn’t open my eyes until he killed the engine and we sat in the driveway beside his home.

It looked slightly different as the seasons changed—less flowers, the garden not as full as it had been two months ago. It was also darker, the sky grayer, and you could see the cold in the air.

Crow got out of the truck, then grabbed his bags from the back seat. I didn’t move because I wasn’t sure what to do, but then he stood in front of his vehicle, watching me expectantly with those eyes of his that reminded me of a day like today.

I followed him inside, where he went directly to the kitchen and began putting the groceries away. When I tried to help him, he rasped out, “Sit,” and pointed to the lonely chair at his bar.

I loved the sound of his voice, the grittiness and how it wrapped around me like a blanket. Maybe that didn’t make sense because it wasn’t soft, but I liked the feel of something a little sturdier against my skin, a little heavier, like those comfort blankets. It made me feel less alone.

Crow finished arranging the groceries, then pulled out bread, mayo, lunchmeat, and other sandwich fixings. Apparently, he was hungry.

I watched as he made a ham-and-cheese sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and onion. He plated it, then grabbed freshly cut peppers and veggies that I assumed were from his garden, and added them to the plate before handing it over.

My heart rate accelerated. “This is for me?”

He nodded. “Eat.”

“What if I’m not hungry?”

“You’re losing weight,” he said gently, his gaze not meeting mine.

I had lost a few pounds since I was up here last, but I hadn’t expected him to notice. No one else did, or if they had, they hadn’t said anything. Sometimes food held more interest to me than others. It all depended on my mental health. The meds made some people eat more, but they didn’t seem to have that effect on me.

Though I didn’t feel hungry, I picked up the sandwich and took a bite. It was kind of him to think about me, to make me food because he thought I needed it. Plus, I’d had my coffee but nothing else when I’d walked to the pharmacy for my meds.

Crow pulled iced tea from the fridge, and I asked, “Do you have any soda? Preferably something with caffeine in it?” because I needed another caffeine fix. He shook his head and made a face that said he was judging me. “What’s wrong with soda?”

Again, he didn’t answer—was this something from The Enlightened? No soda?—but surprisingly, his silence didn’t bother me.

He finished getting me iced tea, so at least I’d get a little caffeine, then crossed his arms, leaning against the fridge while he watched me eat. And when I say watched me, I mean that literally. He didn’t look away from me the whole time, making my cheeks heat up because it was strange and a little embarrassing to be watched while you ate.

“Are you queer?” I asked. Was this just about fucking me?

Crow frowned. “I’m…nothing.”

What did that mean? He was ace? Didn’t feel attraction? Didn’t crave sex? Or maybe… “You’ve never…?” Christ, was he a virgin? But then that made sense. He’d been alone up here since he was eighteen years old.

“I fuck. I’ve been fucking since…” He took a breath like he was working through what he wanted to say, or how to say it, or hell, maybe his voice was just getting used more than it typically did. “Sixteen.”

“Sixteen?” I snapped. I mean, I had too at that age, but… “You were the only minor up here…” Which meant he’d been fucking someone older.

His stare turned cold, putting off enough ice to make me tremble. He shut down, the kindness I’d seen in him completely dead. He knew now that I’d been looking him up—that, or people had talked to me—and he clearly didn’t like it.

“I’m sorry… I…”

“Don’t. Talk. About. That. Again.” His words were choppy, but that wasn’t what made me rear back; it was the venom in each and every one of them.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“Eat.” He pointed at my food again.

For whatever reason, that pissed me off. “You know what, Crow? Fuck you. I don’t know which way is up with you. First, you follow me through the woods, then when I hurt myself, you bring me to your house. You take care of me, ice and wrap my ankle, watch me sleep and piss. You give me crutches, then send me on my way and ignore me for months. Make me feel like I don’t matter, and I get it, you don’t fucking know me. I don’t matter to you. Then suddenly, you see a black eye and go into protective mode, force me up the mountain and feed me when I have no fucking clue what is going on! I’m done with this!”

I shoved off the stool, hearing it clatter to the hardwood behind me. I headed for the door, and the second I opened it, Crow’s hand came down on the wood, slamming it shut again.

His front pressed against my back, his breath hot and hard against my ear, and like the needy slut I was, I pushed back against him, savored his heat, needed to feel something good, something that reminded me I was alive.

Crow inhaled a sharp breath, then another like he was trying to suck the scent of me into his senses forever. His hand came down on my hip, holding, squeezing, so tight that I knew there would be marks, but I didn’t want him to let go. I might die if he let go.

I had no idea if he was queer or straight or sexual at all, but when I pushed back against him again, I felt the hard column of his erection behind his fly. I wanted to melt into him, wanted him to fuck me hard until I forgot who I was, until I was nothing but an extension of him.

It was too much. It was a raw, obsessive way to feel about anyone, especially a man I didn’t know, but I’d always been broken inside, and maybe this was just another way.

“Crow.” His name fell breathlessly from my lips, and like last time, it seemed to jerk him out of whatever trance he was in. His body stiffened, his hand loosening, but I grabbed it, held it to me. “Please. I need it. If you want me at all, please don’t stop.”

His growl was deeper, more urgent and wild than any I’d heard from him before. When he pulled his hand away, I thought he was going to stop, but all he did was use both of them to unbutton and unzip my jeans. He ripped those and my underwear down my thighs, then collapsed behind me, spread my ass cheeks, and dove in.

For a moment I was nervous, but I had showered right before going to the pharmacy, so we should be okay. Crow licked at my hole, made a fucking meal of it, rasping it back and forth like he was ravenous for me. Pleasure sent tingles shooting down my spine, fireworks going off inside me.

He groaned when he couldn’t spread my legs more. He jerked my pants to my knees, I heard him spit, and then Crow pushed one thick finger inside me. “Christ yes!” I cried out. Needing this. Needing him.

He fucked me with it, rubbing my prostate and making my cock throb with need. All I heard were his deep breaths, the sound of him finger-fucking me with one, then two digits. It was tight and not as lubricated as it should be.

I moaned, and somehow he could tell it was different. Crow pulled back, but I begged, “Please don’t stop,” so he spit on his fingers again, then continued pleasuring me. He used his mouth on me again, alternating between both to open me up, to soften me and get me ready for his cock.

I was mindless, as wild and feral as he was. “Fuck me. I need you to fuck me.” In that moment I felt like it could sustain me for life, better than anything else. Logic told me that was wrong, but right now I didn’t care.

Crow shoved to his feet. I heard his pants open and felt him tugging them down. There was more spit, which I knew he was stroking his cock with. This would hurt, but not as much as not having him.

The head of his cock pressed against my rim. He pushed, the familiar pressure there, but slightly more because there was no lube and I could tell Crow was a big man. He kept going, but slowly, so as not to hurt me. One of his hands reached around to my mouth. He pressed his fingers inside, and I let him. The other he wrapped around my cock and began to stroke. He fucked into my ass, my mouth, and jerked me, before taking my precum and spit and trying to slick up his cock some more.

“Keep going,” I pleaded.

Then, as if we’d read each other’s minds, I pushed back while Crow thrust. He filled me, a puff of his breath against my neck while I said his name. Crow’s hips pulled back, then snapped forward again.

Yes, yes, yes!

He started jerking me off again, fucking into my ass, his cock rubbing against my prostate. I welcomed the burn, the pressure he gave my body. I wanted him to speak, but he didn’t. Wanted him to kiss me, but he didn’t do that either. Still, the way he fucked me transported me to another time, another place, where none of the bad shit happened and all I did was feel this much pleasure.

When his hand wrapped around my throat, I froze for a moment. When I didn’t tell him no, Crow tightened his hold. Not too much, but enough that I knew he was there. He could strangle me if he wanted and no one would know. He could fuck me to death while choking me and no one would miss me. He wouldn’t, yet knowing he could made me fly even higher.

My orgasm hit me out of the blue, pummeling into me like I went too far out to sea and was being punished by unforgiving waves. I cried out, balls drawn up as I shot, my release spurting from my cock while my head spun.

Crow let go of my dick, rubbed his rough beard against my skin, then bit into my neck in the spot where it met my shoulder. Sharp pain pierced me as his body jerked and spasmed behind me, his balls emptying in my ass.

Without a condom.

I hadn’t even thought of that.

Crow didn’t move right away, staying inside me until his dick softened. Then he took a step back, tugged his jeans up, which had never made it past his thighs, and walked out of the room, leaving me there, pants at my feet, hole dripping his cum.

I felt utterly alone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Crow

Too many thoughts were going through my head to focus on just one. There was panic because I left Cyrus alone in my living room. Chosen had been very particular about his space and his things, and I’d learned to be the same. We could never touch anything that was his. He was the only one afforded privacy, locks, or anything he could use to keep others out but that no one else could have to keep him out.

Plus, being out here alone all this time, I didn’t know how to have someone else in my home, to leave them alone with my things and give them the chance to find something to use against me or take something that was mine.

Even stronger than that was the desire rushing through my body like a wild, untamed animal. I’d taken him hard and fast, and it wasn’t enough. I wanted to bury my cock in his body over and over again, wanted to fuck him until neither of us could move because I’d never in my life experienced something like that. Being with Hillary had been confusing and an obligation. Being with Bruce was a way to get off, and while yes, fucking Cyrus had been the same, it had been all-consuming too, this ache I didn’t feel would ever be soothed.

Even the thing I’d done with my tongue, I’d never done that before—licking someone, tasting someone. I didn’t even know where the urge had come from, I’d just known I wanted to taste him, that I might die if I didn’t taste him.

And then there was the guilt. I’d fucked him and come inside him. I’d used him like he was nothing more than a hole. I’d been rough with him while he had a black eye from an ex-boyfriend who’d wanted to use him the way I had. Who’d had expectations because Cyrus had invited him over, and now I…what? Treated him almost the same way, as if his ass was payment for whatever it was I was doing with him. The thought made my gut churn. Made me hate myself.

But I still needed him again.

You left him alone. You emptied your balls in his ass and left him there naked.

I found an old pair of flannel bottoms in my dresser. They would be too big on him, but they would have to do. After getting a shirt, I went into the bathroom off my room and got a towel for him.

When I headed back to the living room, Cyrus had pulled his pants up. I couldn’t help wondering if his ass was sticky from my cum, if I could smell myself on his skin, smell the pleasure his body had given me.

I nodded toward the clothes in my hands. I knew I should find words to give him, to apologize or explain or make sure he was okay, but they were locked up too tight at the moment.

This was a mistake. The little lamb deserved better than to be here with someone like me.

Cyrus took the clothes without a word and went toward the bathroom. I shouldn’t follow him. It was wrong—he deserved privacy—but my feet moved anyway.

You want to be close to him. He fascinates you. It’s not just the worry of having someone alone in your space.

He left the door open for me.

“I can turn around,” I told him.

“You can look at me. I like to be looked at,” he said, but then he gave me his back.

I didn’t take my eyes off him as he opened the glass shower door and fiddled with the knobs as if he was at home. That wasn’t something I’d ever seen anyone do here, in the house I rebuilt. He was sad, though. He wasn’t comfortable. I’d hurt him, made him feel even more empty and alone than he had before.

Cyrus took his shoes off, then stripped out of his clothes. He didn’t hide himself from me, and as mixed up as I was, I didn’t disguise my visual appraisal of his body.

He was too skinny, his skin too pale, but to me, he was beautiful, like this thing I shouldn’t touch but couldn’t keep my hands off, and one time, when I plucked him from the shelf, I would drop him and break him. I knew that, but I also knew I would keep taking him down over and over again because I didn’t have it in me not to. I was too addicted to him, too obsessed with him.

There was a light dusting of dark hair on his arms and legs, and where I’d held him too tightly, there were marks on his hips. His cock was soft, crusted dry cum on his glans. It hung over his balls, which sat up higher than mine. Cyrus turned around and got into the shower, his ass perfect, round and tight.

The purple spot on his neck drew my eyes. Had I left teeth prints there? Would he let me do it again? Because I wanted my mark on him.

I watched as Cyrus showered, cleaning his body. There wasn’t a modest bone in his body as he took care of himself as if I wasn’t there studying every move he made. My fingers twitched when he got to his ass, hated that he was wiping away the evidence that I’d been inside him, that some of my cum would be washed away.

I’d never done that before, released inside a person without a condom. Just something else I’d done wrong for Cyrus that felt right to me.

A few minutes later he turned off the water, stepped out, and grabbed the towel to dry himself. My dick was still sticky from what we’d done—my cum and his ass—yet it started to plump again just watching him.

The bottoms hung loose on his hips, my T-shirt large on him too.

Cyrus picked up his shoes and dirty clothes. “What should I do with these?” His voice was so soft, broken, yet in the ways that counted, it was stronger than mine because at least he was using it.

I took them from him, stopping at the washer in the hallway, throwing them in and turning on a load. I placed his shoes beside it.

Talk to him. Tell him something.

But I only directed him to the living room. His plate was still on the counter, with a half-eaten sandwich and untouched vegetables, and I motioned to it, but Cyrus shook his head. My hand wrapped around his arm as I tried to pull him toward the counter. I’d wanted to feed him, but all I’d done was jump on him and rut into him like an animal. He needed to eat.

“I’m not hungry, Crow. You don’t get to tell me when to eat.” He jerked his arm away from me, and despite the frustration raging inside me, I let him.

He walked around the room, looking at my things, before making his way to the bookshelf. He touched each book, running his fingers along the spines, which made me twitch and shift as I reluctantly gave him free rein. I liked to see him in my clothes, though, wanted his scent on them and for mine to seep into his pores so any man that neared him would smell me on Cyrus’s skin.

Finally, he plucked a book from the shelf, took it to the couch, and curled up in the corner as if trying to make himself smaller.

I sat in the chair across from him again, the same one I’d been in the first night Cyrus was in my home, and just watched him as he read.

*

A few hours later, Cyrus looked at me over the top of his book. “I’m hungry,” he said hesitantly, as if he didn’t want to admit it.

Again, I had to bite back a smile, this action that was so unfamiliar to me.

I nodded and went into the kitchen. He didn’t leave the couch, his legs curled up beneath him as I took chicken from the fridge, seasoned it, and put it in a skillet.

“I’m negative…if you’re curious. I’m a bit of a slut, and I’ve fucked a lot of guys.” I couldn’t stop the low snarl that pulled from inside me, but Cyrus didn’t notice or wasn’t acknowledging it. “I was always checked regularly, though. I got checked again when I left rehab, and I haven’t been with anyone since the night that sent me to rehab in the first place. But there were four of them that night. You should know.”

“Don’t,” I spit out, finally finding words again.

He set the book down and headed toward me. “Don’t tell you the truth about me? I’m a whore and a drug addict, Crow.”

He was trying to rile me up, to get a reaction out of me because…because I’d made him feel like a whore. Because I’d used him and then walked away, and all that had done was reinforce the negative feelings he had about himself. “Shut up.”

“It’s true!” he shouted at me.

“Shut. Up!” I slammed my hands down on the counter. My breathing came out in hard, quick puffs, chest rising and falling rapidly. Words chased each other around in my head, making it hard to capture any of them. I wanted to tell him he was strong, that he’d been through a lot and he didn’t hide himself on a mountain. That he didn’t nearly break people’s hands or fight children in foster care. He hadn’t let his mother die for him. I’d watched him when I’d gone to town, saw him return a wallet when a man dropped it outside the coffeehouse, heard him speak to customers in the hardware store. He was kind and bighearted. Brave and… “You brought my food,” was all I said.

“Jesus, with the fucking food,” Cyrus cursed. “I did that because I was curious about you, because I’m actually a little obsessed with you, if I’m being honest. Not because I’m some good guy.”

“And I am?” fell softly and brokenly from my lips. He didn’t know how I’d worshipped Chosen, kept his secrets and put him above my own mother. He didn’t know that I would have blindly followed him anywhere, done anything, hurt anyone because I needed him to be proud of me.

That a part of me had wanted to be Chosen one day too.

My gaze tilted down toward the chicken, and I turned it. “I’ve never fucked without a condom.” My words were coming easier now, if for no other reason than I knew he deserved them. “I’ve never…seen a doctor, but I take tests at home.”

“Are you shitting me? You’ve never in your life seen a doctor?” he asked, and my gaze shot to his in warning. “I’m sorry. That’s just scary.”

“I have kits at home because there’s a man I fuck.”

“I didn’t mean just that. I meant as a whole. You should really see someone just to make sure you’re healthy.”

What I’d said to him was a partial lie. There had been a physician who’d believed in Chosen’s ways. He helped with things we needed and sterilized the men. I’d seen him a few times when I was young, but Chosen didn’t want me to go to a doctor often.

I couldn’t say those things out loud, though, couldn’t talk about The Enlightened to anyone.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “I can take a test. There’s still enough time to get down the mountain to send it off before the snow comes.” The results came by email.

“It’s okay.” He fiddled with the end of the shirt he wore—my shirt. “So you can’t leave here when the snow comes?”

I continued to cook. The desire to ignore him, to keep my voice inside me was strong, but I fought it for him because I thought he needed it. “Depends on how much we get,” I said roughly. “It’s dangerous. There’s a point I won’t test it.” Maybe on the snowmobile, but I didn’t tell him that.

“Do you ever get lonely?” the brave little lamb asked.

My gut twisted. It was a complicated answer, and I feared that my response would show him even more that something was wrong with me. In some ways, yes, I felt loneliness, I had my whole life. It lived inside my bones, inside my head, but then, there was another truth too. “It’s lonelier down there…than it could ever be up here.” Being around a large group of people didn’t make anyone less alone. This would always be my home. I would always belong to this mountain.

Cyrus’s gaze shot up, colliding with mine. “I feel that too,” he said quietly, then walked back to the couch and sat down to read.

I watched him for a moment, tried to imagine him up here with me for the winter…maybe longer. Forever. Because I didn’t want him to go.

“I know…I see it in you. The sadness. It clings to you even when you smile.”

Cyrus’s chin began to shake, his gaze darting away. “No one else sees it. I can fake it well.”

Not to me.

We didn’t talk after that, words difficult for both of us, I imagined. I finished dinner, and we ate in silence, Cyrus on the couch and me in my chair. When he had to use the bathroom, I allowed him to go by himself, my heart racing the whole time. When I had to go, I hurried as much as I could, worry clogging my airway that I would come out and he would be gone.

It was late when he yawned, and I stood. I went to him, held my hand out to him. Cyrus stared at it for a moment before he took it, and I helped him to his feet.

I didn’t bother with the lights, something I never did, as I led him to one of the spare bedrooms and nodded toward the bed. He squeezed my hand tighter before letting go, walking over, and climbing in.

“Will you stay with me?” he asked.

The words filled me up, were more than I deserved. “Yes.” I turned out the light, sat on the floor against the wall, and stayed in that same spot all night while he slept.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Cyrus

My eyes fluttered open, light shining in the window. My gaze landed on Crow, who looked to be in the exact same spot he’d sat in last night. Had he gotten up at all? Had he slept? Sometimes he didn’t seem human, didn’t seem to have the same basic needs as the rest of us. I’d spent two nights at this cabin now, and on both he’d sat in one place and stayed up all night. Either that, or he took catnaps when I didn’t notice.

I winced when I rolled over. My ass was sore from yesterday. It had been a long time since I’d been with someone, so fucking that hard and fast without lube hadn’t been very smart.

Crow frowned, and I hated that he noticed. Silently, he stood and came to the bed. His strong hands rolled me to my stomach. “Wait. What are you doing?”

“Checking you.”

I was surprised I’d gotten a response. I liked the sound of his broken, rough voice, though. The way it wrapped around me and seemed to fill my empty spaces. “I’m fine.”

He paused, didn’t speak, as if waiting, and when I didn’t tell him no, he tugged the flannels down my legs, spread my cheeks, and examined my ass. I wasn’t sure what it said about me, but it gave me a content feeling that he cared enough to check, that my comfort and health meant something to him. No men had cared before.

I trembled when his finger brushed over my rim, my morning wood thickening even more.

“I don’t think there are any tears.” His voice was softer now. “I shouldn’t have…done that.”

My whole body went rigid now, not just my dick. “You regret fucking me?” Of course he did.

Crow was still rubbing my hole, massaging it with his finger, but I wasn’t turned on anymore.

“I liked it,” I told him. “I fucking loved it. I felt…owned, possessed.” And no one had ever truly wanted me. Eddie and his friends liked to screw me, but any hole would do. I never felt like I belonged to them, to anyone, and while I knew that wasn’t true with Crow either, in that moment it had been easy to forget.

His breathing picked up, so loud I could hear it. He was so animalistic, like living out here had changed him into something else. I should stop this…and yet I wanted to push back against him and see if he’d slide his finger inside me, but again, bad decisions were my MO. “Did you like it?” Silence stretched between us, all the good feelings inside me, the hope, shrinking more and more. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

I tried to get out of bed, but Crow pressed down on me, not letting me move. “Too much,” was all he said, but those two words were more than I could hope for, more than I believed.

My heart was in my throat when I said, “Please don’t leave me next time.” Because that had been like being with Eddie. Used and left when they were done with me.

I waited for him to tell me there wouldn’t be a next time. I waited for him to storm out, but he just pulled the pj’s over my ass again. He took my hand and gave it a gentle tug. Come, Crow’s dark-chocolate eyes said without words.

I followed him. Crow led me to another room that I thought might be his, then to the bathroom there. A large, deep tub sat in the corner, and he turned the faucet on and began filling it.

I stood frozen, unsure what to think, afraid that if I moved, I would wake up back in Tranquility, alone.

Crow came back to me, brushed his fingers over the bruise on my face, making my breath catch. He was so gentle with me…when I knew he could be so hard. He’d nearly broken a man’s hand in front of me, and who knew what else he’d done, but with me, he was so incredibly gentle. Well, except when fucking, but we’d both wanted it that way.

He tugged the flannel pants down next, bending so I stepped out of them one foot, then the other. My dick was at half-mast, but he ignored it, before standing again. One hand touched my black eye again, the other my neck where he’d bitten me. I knew without looking that it had bruised. That hand went next to the marks on my hips from his fingers.

“It’s not the same thing, Crow. I wanted what you did to me. Eddie hit me because I didn’t want to give myself to him. I like your marks on me. I want more.”

His pupils blew wide, but he didn’t respond, didn’t touch me or fuck me or anything like that. Instead, he took my hand again, led me to the tub, and motioned for me to get in. I did, sank into the hot water, feeling more comfortable than I had in my whole life.

Like he’d done in the bedroom, Crow slid down the wall and sat on the floor beside the tub.

“I love baths,” I said, and he only nodded. “My mom used to buy bubble bath for me. It wasn’t something we could always afford, even though it was cheap, but she got it for me. I would wear bubble crowns and laugh. It was so simple and so much fun.” I couldn’t piece together why I was telling him this. My mom was the only thing in my life I’d kept sacred and mine, but this wasn’t the first time I’d given those good parts of her to him. “One time she got me this special paint so I could paint on the walls. I had a blast with that.” I chuckled, feeling Crow’s intense stare on me. I wanted his stories too, wanted him to share them with me, but I didn’t even know if Crow had any good memories. I didn’t know a lot about his cult or even how he felt about it.

When the water got high, he leaned over and turned it off for me.

But when I considered this—the bath, the meals, his worry about how he’d fucked me—he must’ve had something good in his life, otherwise how would he have learned to be so giving? Or maybe that wasn’t how the world worked, and it was just Crow’s nature—he could be fierce and hard, but also gentle.

“Have you showered?” I asked, and he shook his head. “After what we did yesterday, you should probably clean up.” When I was greeted with Crow’s familiar silence, I added, “You can…get in with me…”

“I don’t understand.”

“In the bath together. You can sit behind me, and I’ll lie between your legs and—”

“No.” I flinched at his response. “No,” he said again, then shook his head. “This. I don’t understand this.” Crow pointed back and forth between us. “I’ve never had a…friend. Or a partner. Even before…” He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. It was clear he didn’t like to talk about his time in the cult. “It was different. I don’t know what this is, don’t know how to do it. I don’t understand some of my thoughts…desires. It gets tangled up inside me.”

Those were the most words I’d heard him say, and damn, they did a number on my heart. Things had been bad for me for most of my life, but I understood emotions in a way he didn’t. I understood people and relationships. Still, a part of me related to what he was saying. The confusing connection I had with him didn’t make sense to me either.

“I’m not asking you for labels, Crow. I’m not asking you to be my friend or my partner or telling you to do anything. We can just be…do…what feels good because neither of us has had much that feels good. Right now I just want you to take off your clothes and get into the bath with me. Everything else can be figured out later.”

Like me going down the mountain before the snow came. I had two days off, but those would be over quickly. Or maybe Crow would make me leave before then anyway. I also had an apartment with bills and a job, so I couldn’t be stuck up here even if he wanted me to stay—not that he would.

But I wanted that.

Nothing I had mattered anyway. None of it meant anything to me, except one small box in the closet that held some of my mother’s things.

I was surprised when Crow stood up and pulled his shirt off. The man was so sexy, it should be illegal. His masculine chest, with just the right amount of fur, made me want to rub my cheek against it.

He unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans next, tugging them down. He was soft, but I could see he wasn’t just a grower. Even now he was big.

He had more body hair than I did, a thick, dark nest at his groin, and dark furry thighs.

I sat up, and he climbed in behind me and sat down. Crow’s legs were around me, and I leaned back against him, immediately feeling him tense up.

“I’m sorry.” I attempted to put space between us. I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable, but Crow just wrapped his arm around me and held me down. I tried to turn my head to look up at him, but he didn’t let me do that either.

He rubbed his beard on my head like an animal marking me. “No one has ever touched me like this.” No one? What about the people he’d slept with?

“The woman…”

“I didn’t let her. I got out of bed quickly.”

“The man?”

“No one, little lamb.”

My pulse jumped. I didn’t know why he’d used the nickname, what made him choose it for me—or hell, for all I knew, it was a cult thing and all the helpless boys were little lambs. But I liked it.

“No more talking.”

“Okay.” We had spoken more than I thought we would anyway.

We stayed in the bath, lying together until the water got cold. I would have stayed there forever if Crow didn’t tap my thigh and signal for me to get out.

We dried off, and when I tried to put on the clothes he’d given me yesterday, he shook his head. Crow dressed, though, in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I followed him naked, unsure what was happening, until he pulled my clothes from the dryer.

Disappointment burned in my chest. I didn’t want to wear my clothes. I wanted to wear his. It must have shown on my face because he frowned, his brows pulling together, but I shook off his concern, pretending it was nothing.

Crow watched me dress, then signaled for me to follow him. He pointed to the stool at the counter, then pulled eggs from the fridge.

“You don’t have to cook for me.” He only replied with a shrug that I guessed meant he wanted to. “I need to take my medicine.” I was thankful I had it with me. I’d been picking up a ninety-day supply when Crow found me.

He cocked his head slightly.

“One is an antidepressant, the other a mood stabilizer. They keep me level.” Most of the time.

His frown deepened, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “Don’t judge. No one gives a shit if a person takes insulin or high blood pressure meds, but as soon as we take something for mental health, they look down on us. Fuck you, Crow.” I wanted to curl in on myself, to disappear. While I’d dealt with this all my life, for whatever reason, I hadn’t expected it from Crow. And while I felt strongly about not being judged for medication, I also understood that my brain was sometimes impulsive. That I could snap when the situation didn’t call for it.

He just kept staring at me, and though I knew he didn’t talk much, in this moment, it just pissed me off. But maybe more than that, it made me feel like suddenly he saw me, the real me, and didn’t like the picture.

“I want to go home.” I pushed off the stool, but before I could get far, Crow was in front of me, blocking the way.

“I’m not… I don’t…” He shook his head. “I don’t trust medication.”

Oh…oh. This wasn’t about me at all. It was about him and what he’d been through. I hadn’t even thought of that. It was my natural inclination to go to the worst-case scenario or to make it about myself. Considering I had such low self-worth, things went downhill fast from there. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Crow got me a drink while I got the bottles from the bag on the counter and took my pills.

He made scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee, which we ate in the living room together since he only had one chair at the kitchen table and one at the bar.

Afterward he surprised me by tossing me my shoes, then my beanie. I put them on while Crow put his shoes on, sadness weighing me down because this was it. He was bringing me home.

I ripped my jacket from his hands, angry at him even though I didn’t have a right to be. I tugged it on like a bratty child. If I leave my bag here, I will have to come back. He’ll have to bring it to me. But when we went outside, Crow didn’t go toward the truck. He nodded at a stump—where he chopped wood, I assumed. With a frown, I sat down on it, already feeling chilly.

Crow went to the barn, pulled out some supplies, then began securing his greenhouse. Oh…he was doing his chores and taking me with him. Well, most likely he just didn’t want me alone in his house, but I didn’t mind. I wanted to be out here with him.

“It will withstand the snow and wind?” I asked, stepping closer.

Crow nodded, and disappointment hit me. I’d been hoping for words. As if sensing my frustration and actually giving a fuck, he said, “I built it with a truss design to provide extra strength. It’s double-walled, polycarbonate.”

He said the second part as if that meant something to me. I assumed it was what one built a greenhouse with if they lived in the snow. “Doesn’t it get too cold?”

“There’s a heating system. The onions, garlic, cabbage, carrots, and peas are a little tougher and can withstand the cold better. I have an energy curtain. It closes at night and opens during the day.”

Shit, he knew a lot. I looked around me, at how different things were from the photographs online. All this, Crow had done himself. Was there anything he didn’t know how to do? How to survive? “How did you learn all this?” I asked, but he didn’t respond. I tried not to be discouraged. He already gave me so much. “Can I help?”

That made his head whip in my direction and his gaze shoot to mine like he hadn’t expected me to ask that. There was a flash of panic before he covered it. “No.”

“Fine.” I turned and stalked back to the stump. “I’ll just sit here like a good boy and leave you alone.”

Crow ignored my temper tantrum. He just continued with his work. And I continued to pout…for what had to be over an hour while Crow went about his business, preparing his property for the winter.

I knew it wasn’t personal. I was simply the only person he’d ever allowed here. Though maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe the man he fucked came to his home. That thought felt like sandpaper against my skin. I couldn’t sit there and pout any longer, so I shoved to my feet. “I’m going for a walk.”

My feet hit the ground a little too hard as I headed away. Outside my own noises and those of the mountain around us, it was quiet, which was why I didn’t expect it when Crow grabbed me—I hadn’t even heard him coming.

“No.”

“No?” Anger burst out of me. “No? You don’t get to tell me what to do. And I’m not going to sit on a fucking stump all day in the cold and watch you fix shit. I get that you don’t trust me, that you don’t want to leave me alone in your house, and I know how big of a deal it is that I’m here at all, but that doesn’t mean you get to treat me like I’m useless!” I ripped my arm out of his grip and started to walk away, but Crow blocked my path.

“Not useless.”

“I don’t feel that’s true.” Ever. I didn’t ever feel like I wasn’t useless.

Crow ran a hand through his hair, which just fell again to hang around his face. I saw it then, the torment in his gaze. As much as I felt useless, he was struggling with how to do this. I had to remember that this wasn’t about him thinking I couldn’t help, but about him spending at least ten years doing everything alone.

“I’m sorry, Crow. I know you’re not used to this…and you told me you’re trying. I have a lot of issues. Relationships with people are hard for me to navigate. I can get a bit up and down, take things too personally, but I shouldn’t put my struggles on you.”

“You can get lost out there.”

Yes. I could. I’d done that before, hadn’t I? “I’ll sit on the stump. I promise.” I crossed my heart, wishing he would smile, but he didn’t.

Crow just signaled for me to follow him, and we walked back toward the house. When we got there, he asked, “Have you ever weatherproofed windows?”

I wondered if my eyes lit up the way my insides did. That simple question sent me soaring. “No, but I’m a fast learner.”

Crow nodded, and we got to work.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Crow

I taught Cyrus how to weatherproof the windows. We got some of them done, then went inside and I made us lunch. I could tell he wanted to help, but thankfully, he didn’t ask. I didn’t eat food I hadn’t made with my own hands. It was even hard for me to eat things from the store in the beginning, but as long as it was closed and untampered with, I’d gotten over that.

It was making me antsy, having someone in my space, doing things with me. In The Enlightened, people had worked in groups a lot, but I wasn’t always a part of that. It depended on Chosen’s mood. Sometimes he would order me to join everyone, saying I was soft, that I didn’t have it in me to be the kind of leader I needed to be, and outside of pain, that was a way to teach me. Other times, he kept me close because I was supposed to emulate him, and he was Chosen, so he didn’t have to do mundane things—since it was through him that we got a better life on earth and through him that we got to heaven. That gave him a pass on other things.

After lunch, we finished the windows. I double-checked my salt, fuel, and propane supply. Last week I’d already serviced the snowplow and snowmobile, so I knew those were fine.

I needed to bring him home, yet I didn’t. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t doing it. While he kept me on edge, there was also something soothing about having him here. About the way he smiled at his book when he read and the sounds he made when he ate.

We had dinner together too, and while I cooked, Cyrus settled into his corner of the couch, tucked in with his book, like he belonged there. “Have you read all the books on your shelves?”

“Not the top shelf. Those are for this winter.” Along with the internet, I’d learned more about the outside world, about people, through reading.

“Shit. I’m sorry I took one you haven’t read.”

I shook off his concern but didn’t reply. I just watched him. I liked watching him.

When Cyrus said he was tired, I nodded, secured the house, turned off the lights, and went with him to his room.

“You can’t stay awake all night again.” No, I couldn’t, but I’d catnapped some. “You also can’t stay on the floor again.”

“Go to sleep, little lamb,” I said, conversation done.

With a sigh, he pulled a pillow and a blanket from the bed and brought them to me. When I didn’t take them right away, Cyrus set them beside me, walked back to the bed, stripped out of his clothes, and climbed in. “Get the light, would you?”

What I really wanted was to worship his body again, sink inside his ass and never leave it. Instead, I shut off the light and sat on the floor against the wall. I pulled the blanket over me, and when he started snoring softly, I lay down with my head on the pillow that smelled like him.

*

We settled into a routine over the next couple of days. Neither of us mentioned Cyrus leaving. I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t want to, what was keeping him here with me. I didn’t know what his plans were about his job either. He’d asked if I had a cell-phone charger, so I lent him mine. I wondered if he would use it to try and call someone to pick him up, but he didn’t.

He ate the meals I cooked, and helped me can vegetables, and asked questions about the gardens and living on a mountain. Sometimes I answered and sometimes I didn’t, and Cyrus never pushed. The weather was getting colder. Snow would arrive soon, so I knew I had to take him home.

The thought of him leaving made discomfort crawl down my spine. Made it feel like there was a weight in my gut. What if the man who hit him came back? What if he let someone other than me inside him?

“You growled. Why did you just growl?” Cyrus ate a bite of pasta.

I shook my head, unable to reply. I hadn’t even known I’d growled.

“I think if you ever moved off the mountain, you should be a chef. Everything you make is so good,” he continued, happy, comfortable in a way I’d never seen him. Not that I’d seen much of him at all.

“I’m taking you home tomorrow,” I said, without looking at him. In my periphery, I saw his fork stop halfway to his mouth. Guilt spread through me like a virus.

“Oh,” he replied softly.

“Not…you. Not because of you,” I clarified because I didn’t want him to think it was his fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. This was my issue. I had no idea how to share my space with him.

Cyrus didn’t respond. He did continue to eat, though, which I appreciated.

A minute went by, then another and another. Five…maybe more. For the last ten years I’d loved nothing more than the silence, but in that moment, it was deafening.

“You don’t have things,” I told him.

“What do you mean I don’t have things?”

“You only have ninety days of your medication.” I’d looked at the bottles, seen what he had, searched them online so I could learn as much as possible about them.

“Don’t do that. Don’t use my mental illness as a reason I can’t stay here. That’s not fair. Plus, I have more pills at home. I haven’t always been the best with taking them, so I have extra.” He glanced down, clearly embarrassed. “I’m better about it now.”

“What about your job?”

“Fuck my job.”

“Bills? Car? Life?”

“Fuck all that too!” he shouted. “I don’t have anything that matters to me. Nothing besides one small box of my mom’s things in my closet. I don’t care if I lose everything else. I’d start over like I’ve done a hundred other times. Don’t you get it, Crow? I. Am. Nothing.”

My nostrils flared. Hearing him speak about himself that way, knowing that he believed it… I might not know what this was between us, but he wasn’t nothing to me. The words jumbled around in my head again, making it hard to get them out. This tended to happen when my emotions got too high.

Cyrus shoved to his feet and took his plate to the kitchen.

“Finish eating,” I managed to command.

“No.”

“Goddamn it!” I slammed my fist down on the arm of the chair.

“I was going to eat. I was just going to do it over here. I only said no because you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to throw me away and then try to take care of me. You can’t pretend you care if I eat, then want to send me away.”

I didn’t want to send him anywhere, but I needed to. Couldn’t he understand that? Didn’t he see I’d given him more than I ever would or had anyone else? There just wasn’t more inside me to offer.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at his food. “This is your home. Of course I can’t stay. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. I keep acting out and apologizing. I know I’m…a lot.”

But he wasn’t a lot to me, not in a bad way. I craved him in ways I’d never craved anything in my life. I nodded, his words not having done what they were supposed to. They didn’t make me feel better. All they did was empty me out, make me feel hollow. They hammered home that he was leaving—and that it was my fault.

Cyrus stood at the counter as he finished eating, then washed his plate.

He climbed onto the couch with his book afterward to read, but it was different. There was a heaviness to him, a sadness that seeped off Cyrus and into me. I felt it, felt weighed down, but it wasn’t all from him, was it? It was my pain too, at the thought of taking him back.

I ate and washed my dish as well, then sat across from him. Time trickled by, but I didn’t pay attention to how much. I wanted to slow it down, something I’d never experienced before.

“I’m tired,” Cyrus eventually said. I was pretty sure it was early to go to bed, but still I nodded.

We did our routine together, and then he stripped and climbed into bed. I turned off the light, then sat in my spot on the floor to watch him one last time.

*

“You don’t get to throw me away and then try to take care of me. You can’t pretend you care if I eat, then want to send me away.”

I stood beside Cyrus’s bed while he slept. His mouth was partly open, small puffs of breath slipping out.

He was naked, and I wanted to strip the blankets from him, wanted to take him one last time, rut into him hard until we became one, but then, I was fooling myself about that, wasn’t I? One more time would never be enough.

If that were the case, I wouldn’t have my shoes on. I wouldn’t be dressed to leave.

My fingers itched to touch him, to feel his soft, warm skin against mine. I wanted to feel it on top of me in a way I never had. Hillary was the only one I’d looked at when I fucked, but I hadn’t wanted to. But then, I hadn’t wanted to be inside her at all.

Not like I desired him, everything about him, and now…now I was going to keep him.

I was quiet as I sneaked out of the room, as I locked it from the outside, then the house when I left.

It felt wrong. The hairs on my neck stood on end. Everything inside me screamed to go back because I was leaving him in my home, the place I’d built just for me, but I worried if I didn’t do this tonight, I would change my mind tomorrow. Because I knew I shouldn’t keep Cyrus on the mountain with me. Still, for once in my life, didn’t I get to keep something I wanted? Didn’t I get to have him?

The drive into town felt never ending.

I parked down the street from Cyrus’s apartment. I knew where he lived because people talked around me—they thought because I chose not to speak, I couldn’t hear either.

I took the keys I’d stolen from his jacket and unlocked his apartment. It was small but clean. It smelled like old trash instead of Cyrus, though, so I took that out first. He had a few dishes in the sink, so I washed them.

The box in his closet was right where he’d told me it was—the only box there. It didn’t weigh much as I picked it up and took it out to my truck.

The pills proved slightly harder to find, but eventually I found a drawer with numerous bottles of various medications. I had a bag and put them inside.

I took some of his clothes out next, then almost put them back. I liked Cyrus in my things, wanted him to wear something that smelled of me and for my things to smell of him too, like I could scent both of us on them. I was getting more obsessed with him, wanted him to belong to me, though what I would do with him, I had no idea.

I took a few things along—jeans because mine were large, and if he was out in the snow, he should have pants that fit, underwear, and a sweatshirt that lay on his mattress and looked like he’d worn it a lot.

When flashing red and blue lights spun around the room, I froze. No. No, no, no, no.

My heart lodged in my throat. I had to get out of there. Had to run. I rushed for the door—just as the officers approached.

“Hands in the air!”

Officer Paulson. He was better than Dirk. My gaze caught on the other officer, whom I didn’t recognize, as they frantically looked around.

My chest tightened, breath hard to control.

I tried to push my way past them, but they grabbed me. I immediately began to flail, fighting to get out of their hold as the two officers tried to cuff me.

“Crow, settle down. We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on here,” Paulson tried to soothe me, but it didn’t work. The other officer tased me, and I immediately went to my knees, electrical currents shooting through me and feeling like they fried my insides. It numbed me enough that they were able to put the cuffs on me.

We were outside Cyrus’s place now, a neighbor watching. A few other people had crowded around to see the show, though I didn’t know what they were doing out here so late. Was it still late? It had to be, but it felt like my brain wasn’t working.

Paulson sat me in the grass as I struggled to get out of the cuffs. My heart was beating too quickly, head throbbing, throat closing, words swimming in my brain like piranhas getting fed, too fast and vicious for me to catch them.

“Crow, what were you doing in Cyrus Evans’s apartment?” Paulson asked.

I let out a low growl in response, my hair a curtain over my face.

He lowered his voice. “I don’t want to arrest you. I don’t feel like you’ll get a fair shot, but you’ve gotta give me something. Where is Cyrus?”

I snapped my teeth at him like an animal. That’s what I felt like in moments like this, as though I wasn’t human.

“Jesus, I’m trying to help you. Did Cyrus say you could be in his apartment? Is there some way we can speak to him?”

Words were too jumbled in my head for me to sort them, anger raging inside me as I tugged to get out of the cuffs. Pain shot through my wrists, but it wasn’t enough to deter me.

“You’re going to hurt yourself. You need to stop,” Paulson begged.

He tried to reach for me, but I snapped at his hand with my teeth. He immediately pulled back.

My heart was breaking down my chest walls, head spinning. Any time the outside world restrained me, it followed the same pattern: they took me from my home, tried to keep me away, and I didn’t care what I had to do to make sure that didn’t happen again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cyrus

The sound of my cell broke through my sleep, making me jolt up in bed. My heart thudded, my gaze darting around as I tried to get my bearings. My phone rang again, my brain foggy with sleep. “Crow?” I said into the empty room, as though there was something I needed from him. Was Eddie calling me? He was the only person who would harass me in the middle of the night.

My stare landed on Crow’s spot on the floor, my chest tight, like the weight of the world had just been pressed against it.

He wasn’t there. Where in the hell would Crow be?

I fumbled my phone from the nightstand. Melody flashed across the screen. My shaky finger pressed the green button. “Hello?”

“Oh, Cyrus. Thank God you’re okay. I haven’t seen you in a few days, and I was worried, and I didn’t want to overstep, but just now I was coming out of the bar and noticed police lights. I walked down to your apartment, and they’re arresting the mountain man for breaking in!”

I shot to my feet. My mouth went dry, and my throat constricted. “No! Stop them! He’s not breaking in.” But really, he was. I didn’t know what in the hell Crow was doing at my place. Did he often leave at night and I slept through it?

“They’re trying to get him to calm down. They have him cuffed, but he’s flailing, trying to get free. He won’t talk to them.”

I couldn’t help but picture it, a feral Crow feeling trapped and scared. The vision made my gut churn.

I went for the door as if there was something I could do. He’d taken the truck, and I didn’t have my car, so how could I reach him? But the door wouldn’t open. I tried again, tugging at it, but Crow had locked me in the room.

A sense of dread flooded me. He’d locked me in, and that wasn’t normal. It was scary, but it was also Crow, and I didn’t believe he would ever hurt me.

“Please, Melody, you have to talk to them. Crow’s not going to speak in a situation like this—if he’s even able. Tell them I’m fine. Tell them I gave him permission to go into my apartment.”

“Cyrus…are you friends with him?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that, and at the moment, it didn’t matter. “Please, Melody. I can’t… I don’t have my car, and I’m up the mountain. Please help him.”

She let out a loud whoosh of breath. “Yeah, of course. Let me see what I can do.”

I heard noises in the background but couldn’t make out what was going on, but then Melody said, “Officer Paulson?”

“Step back,” someone ordered her.

“This is Cyrus on the phone. He said he gave Crow permission to be in his apartment. Cyrus is…he’s at his place.”

It was hard to hear over the blood rushing through my ears, but suddenly, a masculine voice said, “This is Officer Paulson.”

“Oh thank God. Crow was doing me a favor. He didn’t break in. You have to let him go. You can’t restrain him. He’s going to feel attacked and react. Please, let him go!”

“Shit,” Paulson cursed. “I would like to do just that, but I can’t get him to talk to me. I can’t get him to settle down. If I unlock him, I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself or someone else.”

“Let me try. Can you put the phone close to him?” I had no idea if it would work, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“Sure,” he said, then to someone else, “Disperse the crowd for me. All except for Melody, please.” There was a rustling noise, and then, “Crow? I’ve got Cyrus on the phone for you. I’m gonna hold it close to you so you can hear him, but you’ve gotta settle down. I’m trying to help you here, but you’re not making it easy.”

A recognizable growl broke through the night. Feral Crow had come out to play.

“Here he is,” Paulson told me. More swishing sounds, more snarling, and then Crow’s heavy breathing.

“Crow…it’s me. You have to settle down, okay? Paulson wants to let you go. He told me he would, but they have to know you’re not going to get violent and hurt them or yourself.”

He didn’t answer, just made a snarling noise that should have been scary, but really, it just broke my heart.

“Please, Crow. I need you. I’m locked up here,” I said, hoping like hell Paulson couldn’t hear me. “If you get arrested, what’s going to happen to me? You have to settle down so they’ll let you come back to me.”

His breathing slowed some and the noises stopped.

“This mountain needs you up here. You belong here, and the only way to get back to your mountain is to calm down. Please, Crow. Come home.”

I could hear the change in him, hear how different he sounded, which made the tension in me relax, my body slumping.

Paulson was saying, “I’m going to walk you to your truck, Crow, and then I’ll unlock your cuffs, give you the stuff you had, and let you go. I want you to head straight home, okay?”

I didn’t hear a response from Crow. Paulson must have pulled the cell back to his ear because he said, “Cyrus, we’re letting him go, and if we have any questions, we’ll give you a call.”

“Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Whatever you need.”

“You know this isn’t how tonight was supposed to be handled, right?”

“I do. Thank you.” Paulson was a good man, an ally Crow hadn’t been aware he had. “Can you stay on the phone with me until he’s in his truck?”

There was a pause, which I assumed had Paulson wondering what was going on, but then he just offered a soft, “Sure,” in response, and then I heard him say, “I’m going to help you to your feet, Crow.”

I held my breath, afraid Crow would react badly, but he didn’t.

“We’re walking to the truck now,” Paulson said. He was incredible, and I was so glad it had been him there tonight rather than Officer Dirk. They were the only two I’d had any experience with. “I’m unlocking him—here’s your stuff,” Paulson said before the door slammed, the truck rumbled to life, and Crow drove away.

“He’s on his way now. One of your neighbors called the police. I was just going to talk to him, but…well, that didn’t go as planned.”

Relief flooded me. “Thank you. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

“No problem. I know he doesn’t get a fair rep.” He paused, seemed to think, then asked, “Are you sure you’re okay up there? Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I’m fine. This is where I want to be.”

“I’m going to have Melody take a photo of my card and text it to you. If you need anything, I want you to call me, okay?”

“He won’t hurt me,” I defended.

“I didn’t say he would, but I have no idea why you’re up there, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

I agreed. He must have handed the phone back to Melody because just before I hung up, she said, “What’s going on, Cyrus?”

Rather than answering, I said, “Thank you. I didn’t…I didn’t give you a chance before, and that’s my issue, not yours. But you were a good friend today. That means more than you’ll ever know.”

“No problem. I’m not going to see you for a while, am I?”

“I can’t say, but if you don’t, just know that I’m where I want to be and I’m okay.”

There was a short pause before Melody said, “I can do that, but will you do me a favor and keep in touch?”

I smiled, feeling like even though we didn’t know each other well, I mattered to Melody. That was an incredible feeling. “I can do that.”

As soon as we ended the call, I climbed into bed and curled up into a ball, with my cell phone clutched in my hand, watching each minute tick by. The anger was still there. Crow had locked me in a room and then driven down the mountain. What if there’d been a fire? What if Melody hadn’t called me and he’d gotten arrested? A million things could have gone wrong.

I was unsure what to expect when he came home too. Which Crow would I see? The one who’d been completely shut off when he’d nearly broken Billy’s hand? The one who’d cooked me meals and took a bath with me and taught me how to weatherproof windows and can vegetables? Or would it be a completely different Crow, one I hadn’t met yet?

None of that mattered to me, though. I just wanted him home.

Time ticked by too slowly. Every minute felt like a decade as I lay there waiting for him.

At some point I must have dozed off because I didn’t hear the truck. I didn’t even hear the bedroom unlock until Crow was pushing open the door.

I rolled over and jumped out of bed, not caring that I was still naked. “What were you thinking! Why did you go without me? Why the hell did you lock me in the room?”

Can’t you trust me? Will you ever?

It took me a moment to notice his eyes, the wildness to them. His pupils were huge, and his breaths sounded close to a pant. There had been numerous times before when I thought Crow looked wild, feral, but they had nothing on him at this moment as he took a step, then another toward me.

I walked backward, goose bumps racing across my skin. The hairs on my arms stood on end. It was me who couldn’t speak now, my adrenaline spiking. My gaze shot to his wrists when he moved closer. Bruises colored his skin from the handcuffs, making some of the fear inside me melt. “Crow? It’s me. I won’t hurt you.”

As unbelievable as it might sound, it was almost as if something flashed in his eyes, like when the electricity flickered off, then on again. He moved forward, and I went backward, like he was stalking me. Part of me knew I should be scared, but I couldn’t be—not of him.

The back of my legs hit the bed, and I fell down onto it.

“Need.” The one word came out broken, and grittier than I’d ever heard from him, like it had taken everything inside him to get it out. He started to shake, like he was struggling to contain himself, like he didn’t belong in his skin. “Yes or no,” pushed past his lips, clueing me in.

“Yes. God yes.”

And then Crow was on me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Crow

I felt caged, like I still had the cuffs around my wrists. Once I’d gotten on the mountain, I’d hoped that feeling would go away, but it didn’t. My heart hadn’t slowed its beat. My limbs tingled, everything inside me feeling restless. I didn’t know how to fix it, how to clear my head and relax my body. I just needed.

I grabbed Cyrus and flipped him to his stomach. I kicked out of my shoes, climbed onto the bed, and jerked my jeans down my thighs. I spit on my fingers and pushed them between his ass cheeks. The tip of my digit circled his rim before pushing inside.

“Fuck…Crow…”

A low rumble started deep in my chest. The way he said my name…it was almost enough to pull me out of this frenzy, his voice a life raft, thrown to me while I was lost at sea.

I fucked one, then two fingers into him, Cyrus thrusting against the bed. My other arm wrapped around him, tugging him up onto his knees so I could reach around and stroke his cock. It was hot and hard in my hand. My erection throbbed, ached and pulsed with all the need inside me to let loose, and the only way I knew how to do that was with him.

I pushed a second finger into him again, blinded to anything except the pale arch of his back beneath me, but when he tensed slightly, flashes of our only other time together played in my head—how difficult it had been to push inside him, his tender hole afterward.

Jerking away from him, I stumbled off the bed. My jeans almost made me fall, so I tugged them up.

“Where are you going? Why did you stop?” I hated the broken sound of his voice, the soft ache in it telling me he thought I didn’t want him. How he could care that much about me, I didn’t know, but he did.

“Crow? It’s me. I won’t hurt you.”

He hadn’t been afraid of me. Despite everything and who I was, he’d worried I would be afraid of him rather than fearing for himself.

I didn’t have inside me the words he deserved, but I picked him up and went toward my room.

“Crow?” he asked as I dropped him onto my massive bed. I’d built it myself. I’d built everything myself, but this was one of my prized pieces, the head and footboards made from thick, heavy logs.

I pulled him to the side of the mattress and hefted him up onto his knees. I pushed my pants to mid-thigh again, then plucked the lube from my nightstand. I needed to come, needed my balls to unleash and release some of the panic inside me. I pushed two slick fingers into his hole, and Cyrus moaned in response, pushing back against me and fucking himself on my hand.

He was…beautiful. The way his spine arched so he was at the right height for me. His flawless skin. I wanted to mark him everywhere, needed my scent all over him again, his body marked from my mouth. The need to rut into him, to spill my load deep inside him where it belonged, grew with each passing second.

A third finger joined the first two, stretching his body so he could take me. I didn’t deserve him giving me this, but he was, and I didn’t have it in me not to take it.

“God, that feels so good. I love being full.”

Couldn’t I just fill him all the time? Take him whenever I wanted because he was mine?

The thought pulled me out of the moment. He could never be mine. No one could, and I shouldn’t want that. What did I have to offer him?

He tried to turn his head to look at me, but I pushed it down toward the bed, holding him there with my hand at the middle of his back.

“I want to see you,” Cyrus said, but I didn’t know how to give him that. I took everyone from behind, afraid of what they’d see if they looked into my eyes. I didn’t reply, and somehow, Cyrus understood. He always understood, so instead he asked, “Can you take off your clothes?”

I’d done that with Hillary, of course, but not since then. I’d always fucked and left. The purpose had never been anything more than getting off, but this was Cyrus, and he was…different.

I ripped my shirt over my head.

He didn’t move, didn’t turn to see me as I pulled my jeans and underwear down, then tossed them to the bed so he could see that I was doing my best to give him something he needed.

Once we were both lubed up, I held his hip with one hand, using the other to hold the root of my erection as I pressed against this hole.

“Fuck me,” Cyrus begged.

I snapped my hips forward, filling him. The tight heat of his body washed over me. My eyelids fluttered, eyes rolling back at the perfection that was his body. Nothing had ever felt this good, and I couldn’t believe he was giving it to me.

I pulled back and snapped my hips again, holding his waist with both hands now. The whole bed shook, Cyrus’s body rocking against mine as if he needed this as much as I did.

My gaze darted to his hand when he reached out, plucked my boxer briefs from the mattress, brought them to his face, and inhaled.

It snapped whatever control I had left in me, made my brain waves change. I let out a growl as I took him harder and faster than I’d ever fucked before. We were both sweating, Cyrus taking what I gave him, his body submitting to mine, while he breathed in the most natural scent of me.

I wanted to do the same to him, wanted to possess him.

My grip on his hip tightened. Bending over, I licked his shoulder, the mark I’d put there just days before, before sucking his skin into my mouth. I used my teeth too, one spot, then another, as I rutted into him like an animal and Cyrus begged for more.

I ached, wasn’t sure how much longer I could last, so I used one hand to wrap around his cock and jerk him while I fucked him. Seconds later Cyrus cried out, his body spasming as his hole tightened around my prick, hot, sticky cum sliding between my fingers. My balls drew up, my mouth on the other shoulder, sucking and biting him while my orgasm pummeled me, my balls emptying inside his willing body.

He collapsed onto the bed when I pulled out. “God, that was good,” Cyrus said breathlessly.

Fucking him had taken the edge off in one way, but added to it in others. Slowly, I backed away, seeing my cum between his ass cheeks.

I sat down on the floor across the room from him, back against the wall.

Cyrus turned slightly, then curled into a ball the way he slept, and looked at me. “Are you okay?”

Me? Was I okay? I’d locked him in a room and left him. He’d spoken to me and calmed me down, and then when I came home, I’d fucked him like an animal.

I shook my head because I wasn’t okay. Was this the life my mother had wanted for me? Treating someone I cared about this way? But then, I didn’t know if I was capable of anything else. “I shouldn’t have…” I pointed to him. “Done that.”

He flinched. “My thoughts keep trying to tell me you don’t want me, that no one will want me, but you do. I can see it. If I’m wrong, then no, you shouldn’t have done that, but if this is some misguided guilt for my benefit, I loved what we did. I loved the way it made me feel.”

Why? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t.

Cyrus sighed.

“I got your things.” That would please him, wouldn’t it? He wanted to be here, on my mountain, and I wanted that too. I also wanted to make him happy. I needed it.

“Thank you for doing that, and for letting me stay, but you shouldn’t have gone in the middle of the night, and you definitely shouldn’t have locked me in a room while I was sleeping. What if you’d been arrested? What if there was a fire? Hell, what if you got in an accident and no one knew I was here? If I’m going to stay, you can’t lock me away when we’re not together.”

My nostrils flared at the thought of something happening to him, of him being hurt because of something I’d done.

“Okay?” Cyrus pressed. “I need you to tell me okay. That’s a deal breaker for me. I don’t want to be locked up.”

I nodded, wondering what was happening to me. What he’d done to me. There wasn’t anything I didn’t want to give him.

“I won’t come into your room if you don’t want me to. But free rein of my room, the bathroom, living room, and kitchen would be nice.”

My heart spiked, but I did my best to shove it down.

“We can work up to that,” he said. “Just no locks.”

I nodded, then looked down. My feet were flat on the floor, legs bent, arms on my knees. Cum had dried onto my soft cock, and my wrists were hurting, still feeling restrained.

Being inside him helped me forget, but now it was flooding back. When I began to shake, Cyrus said, “Oh, Crow.”

The bed shifted, but I didn’t look.

Slow footsteps padded across the room, but I still didn’t look.

Cyrus knelt beside me. When he reached out to touch me, I flinched away.

“I’m sorry… I…” He pulled his hand back, but I grabbed it, held it in mine, then leaned my head toward him. Cyrus understood what I needed and began running his fingers through my hair. I hadn’t known something like that would feel so good, hadn’t even understood what made me silently ask him to do it, but now I wanted to melt into it, could live in this moment with his hand in my hair. “I won’t ever let anyone lock you away,” he told me.

They did that when they forced me to leave here. They restrained me and took me away from my home.

I was exhausted, my whole body worn out, my brain too.

My brave little lamb sat beside me, wrapped an arm around me, and continued to play with my hair.

Mine. Yes, he did feel as if he belonged to me, didn’t he?

I understood the concept of emotions. I’d loved my mom. I’d even loved Chosen. I’d seen people in The Enlightened together, spouses and friends. But I’d also seen them throw people away. I’d seen them hurt them for punishment or to open them up for Enlightenment. I’d had that done to me too. But what I’d witnessed hadn’t felt like this. Even knowing how much my mother loved me and what she did for me hadn’t felt like this because she hadn’t been allowed to be affectionate with me.

And then…fights, name-calling, being harassed daily, before I came back to my mountain for ten years of nothing.

Until Cyrus.

“What is this?” I forced out.

“I don’t know,” he replied, and I believed him. While he knew friendship, love, and emotions in ways I never would, I believed that this, us, was foreign to him too.

Cyrus stroked my hair. “You should get some rest. The sun will be rising in a couple of hours.” I immediately tensed. “You can’t spend the whole winter doing nothing but catnapping. I won’t hurt you, Crow.” When I didn’t respond, Cyrus continued to talk. “One time when I was young, my mom was really high. We stayed awake all night, but I was too young to understand why. I just thought about how much fun it was. We watched TV and drew pictures and made a cake and a batch of cookies. I know that sounds terrible—a mom being high with her son, but she doted on me. She made me happy. We always had so much fun together. Oh, and then this one time…”

I listened, my head on his shoulder, until I fell asleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cyrus

Crow was restless, and I could tell he wasn’t getting the best sleep, but I was thankful he got some. The whole time, I was afraid to move, afraid to even breathe so I didn’t disturb him. I wasn’t foolish enough not to realize this was big. Crow was letting me stay. He’d gone to get my things. He’d promised not to lock me in, and now this…trusting me, lowering some of the barriers he’d built around himself.

For me.

It was mind-blowing, and honestly, made me feel seen and important in ways I wasn’t sure anything in my life ever had. Crow had been through hell—and most of it, I would never know or understand—yet he had such a huge heart. Sometimes I wondered how it wasn’t too big to fit inside him.

This time, I would stay awake and watch over him while he slept. I wouldn’t have been able to pass out if I tried, not after everything that happened.

I would call and quit my job. I’d lose my apartment and all the things there—I didn’t have enough money to pay the rent and utilities while I spent the next few months on a mountain.

With a man I hardly knew.

It was a terrible decision.

It sounded glorious.

I focused on the soft sounds of Crow’s breathing until the sun began to rise. The second it did, he stirred, and I knew he was already waking up.

Crow didn’t linger beside me—I knew he wouldn’t—and he didn’t cuddle close or just let himself be. He pushed straight to his feet, his cock half-hard and close to my face. It would be so easy to push up onto my knees and take him into my mouth. I’d love to blow him, to curl up on the couch with his cock in my mouth and just suck on him for hours. The thought put me at peace, made me feel relaxed and content.

Crow held his hand out for me, and I took it. Nerves prickled my nape—I’d been unsure how today would go—but he only led me to the bathroom and…oh…he was running me a bath. “Thank you. Will you get in with me?”

He nodded, and this time, his lack of words didn’t hurt. I’d realized that when Crow was feeling a lot of things—stress, anger, confusion—he spoke even less than he usually did. Maybe that would change. Maybe it never would. Maybe I wouldn’t be here long enough to find out.

When the tub was almost full, Crow got in first. I climbed between his legs and settled in. He used a washcloth and ran it over my shoulders, down my back and chest. He’d never done this with anyone before—that had been obvious the first time we’d bathed together—but he was good at it. He was good at taking care of people. Those things must just come naturally to some. Even if they weren’t shown love, they still knew how to love others the way animals knew instinctually to protect their young.

I knew he wouldn’t let me wash him, and as much as I wanted to ask, I didn’t.

Time felt like it both stilled and went too fast, so I couldn’t say how much of it passed. When Crow tapped my shoulder, I knew it was time to get out.

He gave me clothes and we dressed together, then went to the kitchen. I took my meds as he started cooking breakfast. He was going all out this morning with coffee, bacon, hash browns, eggs, and toast. I sat at the bar and watched him. “Do you like cooking?”

Crow nodded.

“Well, that’s nice because I suck at it but enjoy eating.”

He gave me a small grin, and I nearly fell off the stool, my heart beating a million beats a minute. This was the first time I’d seen Crow grin. As if he’d noticed, it immediately slid from his face. Goddamn it. I wanted it to last. I wanted to see him do it again and again.

I chatted off and on as Crow cooked, not wanting to bother him too much. When the food was ready, he piled a bunch on a plate and gave it to me before filling a glass of orange juice. “You’re good at spoiling people. I’m warning you now, if you keep doing it, I’ll keep accepting it. I’m learning real quick that I enjoy being spoiled.” His brows drew together, and somehow I knew he was asking about my mom. “Sometimes. She tried real hard, but drugs didn’t always make it possible. She never abused me or was mean to me when she was high, but when she needed drugs, she was selfish and that was all that mattered. But she loved me. And she was a good mom. She just had a disease.”

I didn’t want anyone to ever think badly of her.

Crow nodded, and damn, did I appreciate it.

He made his plate, then stood on the other side of the counter while we ate. When we finished, he took my plate, and then for the first time since we’d woken up, he spoke. “Be right back.”

It was my turn to nod as he went to the door, put on boots and his coat. I sat there waiting, but it was only a couple of minutes before Crow returned with the box of my mom’s things and a few bags filled with who knew what.

“Thank you. God, thank you so much.”

He set them on the table, and I rushed over, just as Crow said, “I’m going to…go.”

“Where?” Panic nearly choked me. It was a ridiculous reaction. I was a grown man. There wasn’t any reason I couldn’t be alone.

“To the shop.”

“Can I go too?”

He shook his head, making my body sag, but I tried to force away those feelings. Don’t be too needy, don’t be too needy, don’t be too needy. But I didn’t know how long this would last, and I wanted to soak it all in while I could.

“There’s a room out there that’s only mine…and I need to go, but I can’t…”

He couldn’t bring me, and he was nervous for me to stay. “I’ll go through my stuff and stay in the living room, kitchen, or my room like we said.”

He pushed behind his ear the strands of hair that often fell onto his face, but it only fell back down again. Crow ducked his head in a way that I took to be an okay or thank you, and then he was gone and I was alone in his house.

Crow trusted me. I understood the enormity of that.

I stood there, unsure what to do, so used to being with him even though it had been a short time. Crow was the quietest person in the world, but somehow the house felt too quiet without him.

I kept myself busy by going through the box of my mom’s things, despite knowing by heart what was inside: Letters she used to write me sometimes, like she knew I would lose her and would need a reminder of how much she loved me. A bracelet and a necklace that weren’t worth anything, but she’d worn the necklace and had given me the bracelet as a gift. Photos, an old deck of cards we used to play games with, a barrette she used to wear in her hair. I went through every single thing, remembering her and so thankful to Crow for getting this for me.

I wished she could have met him. She would have understood him too, even if most people didn’t. She would have accepted him right away because she knew what it was like to be looked down on by others.

When I finished, I placed everything in the box again, then looked through the bags—more of my mental health meds, some clothes, my journal where I documented my mood swings.

I went to my bedroom—I figured it was mine now—though I would’ve rather been in his. I folded the clothes and put them in the dresser, finding places to put everything away. I wondered why he had this room at all, why he had extra when it had only been him, but I liked that Crow had at least been in a house that felt like more people lived in it. Maybe it had kept him from feeling as lonely.

Then I wondered what I was doing, why I was moving myself in with this man I hardly knew, but it felt right in ways nothing in my life ever had.

I went back to the kitchen and cleaned the counters and swept. How long would Crow be gone? What in the hell was he doing?

I read for a while, and then when it was late enough, called work and quit my job. It was a dick move, not giving them notice, which I hated, but at this point, I didn’t have a choice. I was already up here with Crow, and who knew when the weather would get bad.

After that, I called Melody. I owed her for last night.

“Hey,” she answered, sounding sleepy. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m good. Maybe better than I’ve ever been.”

“And you’re staying up there…with him?”

“He’s a good man,” I snapped, feeling the need to defend him.

“Whoa. I’m not saying he’s not. I just don’t know him, and he’s never ever gotten to know anyone in town, so it surprised me that you’re suddenly moving in with him. It’s unexpected. I’ve always felt bad for him, though. I’ve tried to talk to him a few times, but he wasn’t having anything to do with me.”

I chuckled. That definitely sounded like Crow. “He came into the coffeehouse?”

“No. Not once. I don’t think he’s gone to any place like that, but I’ve seen him around. What can I do for you, though? Is there any way I can help?”

My heart swelled. She was…offering to help me? I hardly knew this woman. She’d traded numbers with me, told me more than once that she wanted to hang out, and I always denied her, yet she’d been there for us last night, and she was helping me again today. “You’re great, Melody. I didn’t give you a fair chance before, and I’m sorry for that.”

“No, you didn’t, but something tells me you’ve been hurt more times than you haven’t. Just be good to me from now on.”

God, I really liked her, and when I went down the mountain again, I wanted to hang out with her. “Deal. I’ll buy you lunch when the snow starts to melt.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Now, is there any way I can help?”

“I’m probably going to lose my apartment. I can’t afford to keep paying, but I’m not jumping the gun on that. My biggest worry is my car. It’s a piece of shit, but it’s mine. I don’t know that I can come down to sell it or store it or anything…”

“Is there a key in your apartment? I can keep your car at my place. I have room in my garage.”

I exhaled deeply. “God, you’re a lifesaver. I’m terrible at keeping track of things. I lose my keys all the time, so there’s a key hidden outside the apartment, and then there’s a car key inside.”

“Perfect.”

I told her where everything was, and then we chatted for a bit, until Melody said, “I hate to end this call, but I have an afternoon date.”

“Wow. That’s exciting.”

“Her name is Isabelle. Who knows if it will go anywhere, but I’ll keep you posted.”

I hoped she would. I wanted Melody to meet someone. “Thank you again. I appreciate your help.”

“What are friends for? Let me know if you need anything else, and…I know we talked about this before, but keep in touch. Just so I know everything is okay.”

My chest warmed that she cared. “I will, but I’ll be okay. Crow wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Good.”

We said our goodbyes, and then I sat there for hours, waiting for Crow.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Crow

I couldn’t stop painting and drawing. I hadn’t done it at all since I’d brought Cyrus home, unable to leave him alone and definitely unwilling to share this part of myself with him. When I was young, Chosen had told me that my “doodling” was a foolish endeavor, a waste of precious time. I needed to be proving myself, bettering myself, standing out from the others in The Enlightened because if The Chosen’s son wasn’t worthy, it would reflect poorly on him. So I’d always done my best to work harder, worship harder, take pain better and more often than anyone else to make him proud. It had never been enough.

I brushed my finger over where I’d drawn the arch of Cyrus’s back, as if it was the same as truly touching him. I craved his skin beneath me all the time, yearned for it in a way that was unhealthy and Chosen would have tried to beat out of me. It was okay to fuck because that’s what men did, but the need I felt for Cyrus would have been a sin because we weren’t supposed to put anyone or anything over our love and devotion to Chosen and God.

I slept with Cyrus.

My guard was always up, of course. Had he moved from beside me, I would have woken. I’d learned to stay alert because sometimes Chosen would perform drills while we slept. Chosen and his handpicked elders would sneak into our rooms, test us. Take us to the Clarity room, which was where they inflicted pain or did a mock drill of outsiders coming to attack our compound so we could show how we would defend our Chosen.

He was first. Always first.

My pulse accelerated, so I concentrated on the curve of Cyrus’s ass, the way I’d drawn his cheeks open for me to take him.

The way he gave himself to me…there was nothing like it.

I worked until it was almost time to start dinner. I’d needed to draw even though it was hard to leave him alone for that long.

After cleaning and putting my supplies away, I locked the room and returned to the house. When I walked inside, I immediately smelled him. The sweet scent that always clung to his skin filled my home, and that made something inside me rumble.

I took off my coat, then went to the couch where Cyrus was curled into a ball, sleeping. His face was flushed slightly, which made his freckles pop against his skin. His hair was messy, sleep rumpled. He looked so content, like he was able to shed while he slept all the hurt and bad things that happened to him. I watched him breathe for a moment, studied each and every freckle that danced across his nose and cheekbones, mapped out a route on his pretty face that only I would know.

My eye caught on the purple mark on his neck, the one I’d put there with my mouth, staking my claim on him. Seeing it made my chest puff out, made me feel like the king of this mountain.

I didn’t know how he could do this, how he could sleep through my coming inside and standing over him this way. I yearned to touch him but didn’t want to disturb him, so I made my way into the kitchen as quietly as possible to prepare dinner.

Though it was better when I started the sauce early and let it simmer all day, I decided to make spaghetti. I put the sauce on first, adding all my favorite spices before chopping fresh garlic from my garden to add.

I was about to start the meatballs, when I heard Cyrus stir on the couch.

“You’re here,” he said softly.

Where else would I be? But then, I’d walked out on him again, hadn’t told him what I was doing, and was gone for over ten hours. “I’m sorry,” I said, wanting to find a way to continue to give him more words because Cyrus deserved them.

He got off the couch and walked over. “You don’t need to be sorry. You told me you had something to do, and you did it.”

I signaled for him to sit on the stool.

“Spaghetti?” he asked.

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“I do. Like I said, I’ll eat just about anything. When you don’t always know where your next meal is coming from, you learn not to be picky.”

Tell him. Give him a piece of yourself.

Without looking at him, I said, “I would be denied food sometimes.”

Cyrus inhaled sharply, likely surprised by what I was giving him. I was too. Blood rushed through me, my ears sounding echoey.

“I was expected to be strong.”

“How does that make you stronger? You need sustenance.”

“Mentally.” When he opened his mouth, I shook my head.

Cyrus got the message and said, “You have paint on your cheek. Were you painting?”

Yes. You. I was painting and drawing you.

I nodded. “Garlic bread?”

“Are you really eating spaghetti if you don’t have garlic bread?” he replied playfully.

I chuckled, and we both froze, our gazes snapping together as if neither of us could believe it. I knew I couldn’t, couldn’t make sense of the sound that had come out of my mouth even though I knew what it was. When was the last time I’d made that sound? Here or there at myself if I did something silly or saw an animal do something funny, but not where someone else could hear. Not since I was a child.

“I like the way your laugh sounds,” Cyrus told me. “I appreciate your sharing it with me.”

Hearing him say that made me want to do it more. I wanted to please him, wanted to make him feel good in ways no one ever had before. “I like yours too,” I admitted.

“But mine isn’t something special.”

“Maybe it is to me.”

“Oh.” His mouth made a cute O.

“Just so you know,” Cyrus said, “I might start laughing all the time now. Just for no good reason, I’ll laugh so I can be cute to you.”

He would likely always be cute to me now, but I kept those words inside.

Cyrus started to tell me about the book he was reading, and I let him, even though I hadn’t read it. I finished cooking, made us plates, and we sat in the living room like we always did.

“You can sit by me on the couch,” he prompted, patting the cushion. I shook my head. We needed to discuss the plan for tonight and every night afterward because he was going to be here, staying in my cabin with me.

The thought both excited me and made my gut twist.

Cyrus moaned as he took a bite, and that was enough to get my mind off it and make blood head toward my groin. It was just a sound, but it felt like a mating call to me, like any noise slipping past his lips resulted in me needing him.

“God, this is so good. I’m definitely going to gain weight up here.”

“Good.”

He gave me a shy grin. “I called Melody and thanked her for last night again. She’s also going to get my car and take it to her place. I’ll lose my apartment, but I can deal with that.”

I frowned, brows drawn together. “Lose it?”

“I can’t afford to pay rent on it while I’m gone, which is fine. I don’t care. You brought me everything that matters, and I’m used to starting over. How do you make your money, anyway?” He stuffed another bite into his mouth, not knowing he’d just hit a sore topic for me. If it wasn’t for my mother, I wouldn’t have money. If I lived differently and outside my means, I would run out sooner.

“I’ll pay.”

“Huh?”

“Your apartment.”

“What? I can’t ask you to do that!”

“I’m paying!” I snapped, and when he flinched, I immediately felt guilty.

“Yeah, sure. Okay. If you insist. We can pay it online, but I need to do stuff around here to earn that. And I’m keeping track so I can pay you back.”

I nodded, though I had no plans for that to happen. I wouldn’t take Cyrus’s money.

We were mostly silent as we finished eating, and when he started to do the dishes, I watched him, always interested in everything about him—how his hands moved, the facial expressions he made, how he licked his lips.

“No TV?” Cyrus asked. I shook my head. “We can watch shows on your computer.”

“I don’t…do that.” I’d tried a few times, but they were strange and the people annoyed me. The humor didn’t make me laugh. Mostly it just made me feel stupid, though I knew I was smart.

“Oh my God! You have to. I’ll find good shows for us to watch. Maybe I can pay for a streaming service. You get the internet, right?”

“Yes.”

“How did you learn it?”

“I taught it to myself.”

“And that’s how you pay your bills and…connect with the world.”

I nodded, head throbbing. I rubbed my temples, needing a break. “That’s enough talking for a while.”

But eventually we would have to speak.

Cyrus nodded, then got his phone and played music while he cleaned the kitchen. I didn’t know who it was, but he definitely enjoyed it, dancing and singing with a spatula to a woman’s voice. My cabin was going to be much noisier with Cyrus here.

“Taylor is my girl.” He did a shimmy thing that made my dick harden.

You’re my boy, flittered through my head, and I didn’t shut down the thoughts.

After cleaning, he settled in with a book, and I got my laptop and searched streaming services. I’d spent years wanting to stay as disconnected as possible from the outside world while still having the knowledge to take care of myself, and yet, less than a week in my cabin and I was searching for the best way for him to watch shows.

When I finished, I chose a book of my own, preferring paper to e-books, and sat in my chair, trying to concentrate, but Cyrus kept drawing my attention. I wanted him naked. I wanted my dick inside him. I wanted…so many things I shouldn’t.

Cyrus looked at me over the top of his book. “What?”

I shook my head.

Something changed in his expression, and he set the book down, then stood and walked over to me. He stopped right in front of me, cheeks pink and breathing heavily. “Have you ever had a blowjob?”

“Yes. But I’ve never given one.” I would, though, for him.

“When I asked if you’re queer, you said you’re nothing.”

“Because I’m not. It’s different for me. I don’t use terms like that. It’s men I want to fuck, but there’s nothing beneath it. No emotions attached.”

He winced, and not for the first time, I realized I’d hurt him. But I couldn’t make promises I wouldn’t know how to keep.

He said, “I’ve never been in love, and I’m still gay, but you have the right to claim or reject any label. That doesn’t matter. Right now, all I can think about is how much I want to suck you.”

My dick throbbed. Bruce had gotten on his knees to suck me off, Hillary had too, but those situations weren’t the same as this. They weren’t Cyrus.

“Take your clothes off first,” I commanded.

“You want to see me? You like seeing me, don’t you?” He ripped the T-shirt over his head, then tugged down his jeans.

His pretty cock sprang free, hard and leaking and…what would it taste like on my tongue? What would it feel like to bring Cyrus that kind of pleasure?

“Yes,” I answered roughly.

“Will you take all your clothes off too? I like to see you as well, Crow.”

I trembled. Christ, what it did to me to hear him say my name. I couldn’t hold back the rumble that pulled from my throat.

I shoved to my feet and ripped off my clothes too. All these pieces of me he was taking…I hadn’t known I had the ability to give. The short time we had known each other didn’t matter, only our connection did, the deep-rooted feeling inside me that said Cyrus belonged to me.

He dropped to his knees in front of me, hand around the base of my cock, and sucked it into his mouth. I hissed, ran my fingers through his soft hair while he bobbed on my dick. It had been so long since I’d felt this—a hot, wet mouth on my prick—and Cyrus’s was skilled, and perfect, and God, I could live in this moment, dick in his throat, forever.

He pulled off and kissed my balls, looked up at me as he lapped at them. I pushed my glans against his lips again, watching him take me like the perfect boy he was. I didn’t know how I would stand to lose this, how I would survive once he left.

Cyrus sucked in his cheeks, savoring me. I could see how much he liked this, how much he wanted to be good for me, how it seemed to give him a sort of peace too.

I thrust gently between his lips in a way I hadn’t done in a long time. Everything with Bruce was rough and hard, and while I loved that, this was incredible too.

I wanted him to swallow my cum, wanted to shoot it on his pretty face, every inch of his body, because he was mine and I wanted the evidence on him and in him.

I snapped my hips forward. Cyrus groaned hungrily around me, making noises like he was ravenous for me as he took me to the back of his throat over and over and over again. He choked on me, gaze telling me he needed more. My hand fisted in his hair, and I gave it to him. Was there anything in this world I wouldn’t give this man? I didn’t think there was.

He jacked himself off while I fucked into his mouth, and the second I saw him shoot, my balls drew up and released, spurt after spurt filling him. Cyrus took down every drop.

My little lamb continued to suck me, nursed on my erection, eyes pleading. I sat down, and he wiggled between my legs, cheek against my thigh, and just…kept me in his mouth, sometimes sucking, sometimes not, like he wouldn’t be content if he didn’t have me inside him.

I petted his head, found the map I’d made in his freckles, and this time, traced it with my finger. He needed care, my little lamb. He needed to feel wanted and comforted, and something about me did that for him. He inhaled deeply, breathing me in like he had done with my underwear the night before.

“You’ll sleep in my bed,” I told him. I couldn’t have him in the other room. Even though I tried to pretend it was because I didn’t trust him, that if he was in my bed, I’d know his every move or if he tried to get up and do something, it was really because I wanted him close. That was a truth I silently accepted.

He smiled around my cock.

And I think…I think I smiled too because something I’d done made him happy.

I picked up my book, opened again to the first page, and read to him while he sucked me. We sat like that for hours. When he started to fall asleep, I woke him and told him it was time for bed.

Cyrus watched while I locked up and turned off the lights, then went with me to my bed. I stiffened when he wrapped an arm around me, tried to cuddle close. This would take some getting used to, and I doubted I’d get much sleep tonight.

“I’ve never done that,” Cyrus said. “The cock-warming thing. I’ve fucked a lot of men, too many men, but I didn’t want them that way.”

I smiled into the dark as Cyrus fell asleep.

It was a restless night for me. Every time he moved, I woke up, but I didn’t regret it. I thought I might need it as much as he did.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cyrus

Crow was stiff when I woke up the next morning. I hated that I’d made him uncomfortable, so I mumbled, “Sorry,” and tried to pull away. He held on, yet he didn’t relax, as if his body and mind were at odds, part of him wanting me close, the other struggling with it.

He didn’t speak, and though I wished he would, I’d accepted that Crow would always be quieter than most. But he tried, and that’s all I cared about. Trying was what mattered.

We lay there for a few minutes before I told him I had to pee. We went into the bathroom together, took care of business, then brushed our teeth. We showered together and then got dressed.

As soon as we went into the living room, my gaze was drawn to the window. “Oh! It started to snow!” I rushed over, practically pressing my face against the glass like a child. “I love the snow. It’s like…I don’t know how to word it. It’s the beginning of something, a transformation…like being reborn.”

I felt the warmth of Crow’s body as he stood behind me. He danced his fingers over the hickeys and bite marks on my neck, and growled.

I laughed. “Here I am, trying to be all deep, and you just want to beat your chest over the marks you put on me.”

“I like them,” he said, gifting me with his first words of the day.

I cocked my head so he could see them better. “I like them too.”

I pushed back against him, but Crow didn’t take the bait. “Breakfast.”

“I mean, I’d rather be your breakfast.”

He gave a slight chuckle, like he’d done last night, but this time didn’t seem as shocked by it. The deep, throaty sound was one of my favorite things I’d ever heard. I longed for it to become something Crow did every day.

I took my pills, and he made breakfast. He stood at the counter while I sat, the two of us eating together.

“We need another stool,” I told him. “And a chair. I’d offer to stand, but I know you won’t let me.” It made me feel cherished, taken care of and precious to him, though I figured that was just the way Crow was. He ignored that, the brat, and once we were done eating, I forced him to sit down while I cleaned up the mess. “I can’t let you do everything for me…but I’ll definitely let you do a lot. I’ve never been spoiled before. Do you like doing it?”

His forehead wrinkled in that way it did when he thought something was strange or something I asked was strange. It was amazing how quickly I was learning Crow’s quirks.

“I want to take care of you. I don’t know why.”

I chuckled. “Way to make a guy feel special.” When the lines in his forehead deepened, I waved off his concern. “I know what you meant. I was joking. I can take care of myself, though. I’ve been doing it most of my life.”

“Yes, but now you’re mine,” he said simply, as if it wasn’t a big deal.

My mouth dropped open for a lot of reasons. We hardly knew each other. I knew he didn’t mean he loved me, but still, he was claiming me. What did being his mean? I shouldn’t want to belong to someone, but I sure as shit had never wanted anything more than I wanted to be Crow’s.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” I shook my head.

Afterward we went to the greenhouse and checked on the plants, and then I helped Crow carry firewood into the house, and he taught me how to start a fire. It was…more special than it should be. It reminded me of my mom and how she’d always loved fireplaces.

He also showed me his shop, which had a locked room in the back that had me curious.

After dinner I crawled between his legs and sucked him off again, then sat there with his cock in my mouth while he read to me. Reading seemed to be different for him than speaking. He could do it a little easier and longer, maybe because the words didn’t come from inside him in the same way.

We slept together, and the next day, did much of the same. Day after day after day, we fell into a routine, showering or bathing together in the mornings, breakfast and cleaning, then outdoor chores. He had another old truck in the garage—one that didn’t run but that he was rebuilding. I swear there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

Some nights he fucked me, some he didn’t, but it was still always from behind. While the sex was good, I wanted to see him when he took me, wanted to look him in the eyes and see Crow lose himself in my body.

There were also times when he left me alone to go spend time in his locked room in the shop. What was in there that he couldn’t share with me?

Melody texted me a photo of my favorite latte from the coffeehouse, and I smiled. I’d talked to her about checking up on my apartment—Crow was helping me pay my bills—and she’d agreed.

“God, what I wouldn’t give for a mocha latte with an extra shot.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“What? No! God no.” I stared at Crow with what I hoped was a look of horror.

“We can try to make one here.”

I could tell he was about to go and do just that, so I put my hand on his. “For someone who’s been alone for over ten years, you sure do know how to use your heart better than anyone I’ve ever known.” Hell, maybe that’s why he could. Crow would always look at the world differently from other people. He would never be seen as “normal” by most. The man growled, for Christ’s sake, but I thought humanity would be a whole lot better if more people were like Crow.

He shook his head but didn’t speak, so I let him off the hook and complained about something else instead. “I want us to make a stool for the bar and a chair for the table. Can we please do that today?” I’d been there two weeks, and Crow still stood beside me at breakfast because for whatever reason, he didn’t want two damned stools.

His lips tightened into a straight line. “No.”

“Why? I don’t get what the big deal is!” I snapped, getting upset now.

“Because they’ll be yours,” he unleashed right back.

Okay, that hurt. He could share his house with me, but God forbid we made something that would be mine? “Fine. Whatever. I’m going to take a bath.”

I started to walk away but didn’t make it far. Crow boxed me in, my back against the wall, his hard body against mine, his forearms braced on the wall so I couldn’t escape. “Because they’ll be yours. One day you’ll leave, and they’ll still be here. And when I look at them…”

Oh…oh. Shit. I hadn’t expected that. All the furniture in his house, even the stuff he didn’t use, he’d made for himself or for his house. He hadn’t made them with another person in mind, but if we made furniture for me, it would always remind him of me. “What if I don’t ever leave? If you don’t make me, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will, little lamb. Everyone wants to leave. Even my mother wanted to leave. And after…when I came back…they were all gone.”

His mom had wanted to leave? His dad had killed his mom…was that why? And did that mean Crow took his dad’s side? That he thought his father was right in what he believed?

But no. He wouldn’t do that. I could never believe that about him, so I reiterated, “If you don’t make me, I’ll never leave. Not for good.”

His nostrils flared as he breathed in and out, and then he pushed away from me. “I’ll be back.” He jerked a coat off the hook and disappeared outside.

Hours crawled by without me knowing what Crow was doing. Again. And I missed him, which was silly. He was close, and he would be back. I was already too needy, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Just like I couldn’t stop my thoughts, couldn’t stop wondering what I did wrong. Logically, I knew that was my mental illness talking. It wanted me to think everything was always my fault, that no one would ever stick around, that the loneliness would last forever. My meds helped a lot. I couldn’t function without them, but they didn’t make everything perfect. And I hadn’t been in therapy since I arrived in Tranquility. It had helped me deal with my thoughts and feelings, so I should look into it again.

Eventually, I went to the room I’d been sharing with Crow. One of his dirty shirts was on top of the hamper, so I grabbed it and took it with me as I lay in the bed. With the fabric to my face, I breathed him in, was lulled to sleep by the scent of the mountain, which was all Crow.

I didn’t wake up until there were strong hands on me, Crow’s fingers pressing into my hips. I opened my eyes and saw him leaning over me, his hair hanging down. When he saw his shirt in my hold, I swear his eyes became possessive…hungry.

He tugged my pants and underwear down, which immediately made blood rush to my groin. I expected him to flip me over and fuck me, and I would gladly take his dick at any time, but instead, he watched me, eyes never leaving mine as he bent forward and took my half-hard cock into his mouth.

“Fuck yes,” tumbled out of my mouth at the feel of him around me. It took me about two seconds before I was at full mast, the reality of this moment hitting me. Crow had never sucked dick before, but he had his mouth on mine. This was Crow trying to give me something. He felt guilty about denying me the chair earlier, so he found something he could give, and it was this.

I buried my fingers in the long strands of his hair, and Crow stilled. He’d liked it the one time I played with his hair, so I’d assumed he was okay with it. “Sorry.” I tried to let go, but Crow grabbed my wrist before I could and pressed my hand into his hair. Maybe I just surprised him? Sex for him had never really been intimate or with any kind of connection. In a lot of ways, it hadn’t been for me either, but I was used to people touching me, exploring me and allowing me to explore them in a way Crow hadn’t allowed before.

“I love how your hair feels,” I told him as he began sucking me again. He didn’t have the most skilled mouth I’d ever been inside, but it was my favorite mouth, regardless. My whole existence already felt completely wrapped up in Crow like this was always where I was supposed to be. It just took a lot of heartache for me to make it here.

He choked once, and I could tell it wasn’t on purpose, then used his hand to stroke me too. Crow raised his eyes so they were on me, and I couldn’t look away from this man between my legs with his wild, hungry eyes, flowing hair, a thick beard, and my dick in his mouth.

He let me continue to touch him, to play with his soft locks until my balls throbbed, they were so full of cum, and I knew I couldn’t hold off much longer. “I’m gonna come. Fuck, Crow, I’m gonna—”

He didn’t pull off when I thrust forward, back arched, and shot my release into his mouth.

“God, that felt good,” I said as I tried not to melt into the bed. “Did you like it?” I noticed paint on his hand. He was definitely painting when he disappeared.

“Yes,” he replied. “Especially swallowing you down, taking your cum into my body.”

“Jesus. You’re going to kill me talking like that. So hot, Crow, seriously.”

He pulled me to him, pushing my head so that my cheek rested against his chest, so I couldn’t look at him. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow what?”

“I teach you how to build a chair.”

I smiled into his chest.

Yes, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Crow

“How did you learn to build things?” Cyrus asked when we were in the shop the next morning. I was still trying to sort through all the confusion in my head about him—why I’d let him stay, why I had him in my shop, building chairs, so both of us could sit down, when one day he would leave.

Why the thought of him going felt…wrong. Like it wasn’t the way things were supposed to be or like the whole damn world would tilt off its axis when that happened.

“Why do you always try to get me to talk?”

My little lamb chuckled. “Because I like the sound of your voice…and I want to learn more things about you…and it would be awfully boring up here if we didn’t speak.”

There was a pinch in my chest at hearing he was already bored. Would Cyrus even last the winter? Would I have to make the dangerous trip down the mountain to take him home?

You wouldn’t have to take him home. You could refuse. You could keep him here.

Which would make me like Chosen, wouldn’t it, and there was nothing I wanted less than to be like him.

Talk to him. Make him want to stay.

“Some I learned…before.” Cyrus stilled beside me, a chair leg in his hands, but no longer sanding. I didn’t look at him as I continued to work. “We had to be useful…me even more than the others.”

“Why?” he asked gently, as if the question scared him. Or maybe it was my possible answer that did.

The thing was, in some ways, my mouth wanted to just open and let it all spill out, to tell him the truth, tell him everything, not because I wanted him to know or because I wanted to relive it, but because I didn’t want to deny Cyrus anything. It was so damn confusing. “I don’t understand why I struggle to say no to you.”

He nudged me with his arm. “Maybe it’s my charm.” I turned his way, cocking a brow, and Cyrus chuckled. “Okay, so apparently, it’s not my charm. Maybe it’s just…we get each other. Deep down to the bone, something about us is connected. I feel it, Crow.”

I sighed because I felt it too. Part of me wanted to evict it, to incinerate it because no good would come of it, but the other part wanted to hold tight, to fucking imprint it into myself.

“Because I was The Chosen’s son. More was expected of me in every way.” More Enlightenment, more Clarity, more pain, more Worship.

“Your dad—”

“Chosen,” I cut him off. He was not my dad. He hadn’t wanted to be, either, not in the typical way that families existed. Not in the way they were in books I’d read.

“Chosen…what kind of things did he expect from you?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, or maybe I just didn’t want to. This was already exhausting. My chest squeezed tight, breathing becoming more difficult.

“You don’t have to tell me. I’m sorry for being nosy.” Cyrus’s warm, gentle hand rested on my forearm, and I tensed. “I’m sorry.” He pulled away. “Sometimes you’re okay when I touch you, and others it seems to be harder.”

“I didn’t get affection the way you did. Chosen had rules about emotions and affection, especially with me, especially as I got older. My mother was rarely allowed to hug me. Everything I needed I was supposed to get from him, and he didn’t think I needed that. It was all to make me strong. To make me into someone who would blindly follow him, to take scraps he gave me, like Hillary.”

But I did like it when Cyrus touched me, even if I didn’t show it to him. I liked it when he would rest his head on me and suck my cock for hours…

“Jesus, Crow. Why didn’t your mom—”

“She tried,” I snapped, cutting off his words before he could go any further. My heart already spiked just hearing that.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. It feels similar to when people asked me why my mom didn’t stop doing drugs. It’s not that easy. People like to throw stones at others for their choices, when most of the time, we’re just doing the best we can.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. Somehow I knew he would get it.

“He brainwashed her, and you, and everyone else. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t their fault either.” My brave little lamb surprised me by pushing the wood away and jumping onto the table. “Come here, Crow.”

He tugged on my shirt, and I let him lead me to stand between his legs. He wrapped them around me, then his arms too. I let him do that as well.

“If you’ll let me, I’ll hold you and touch you every damn day.” He dropped his forehead against mine, and I reached up, held on to his hips. “I want to kiss you, Crow, but I won’t. One day I hope you’ll let me, but if not, that’s okay too.”

He brushed his nose against mine, and damned if I didn’t tremble. When I inhaled, it was Cyrus’s breath I was taking into my lungs. My hold on him tightened. The things I wanted to do to him…the way I wanted to consume him.

“I love the way you smell.” His lips ghosted close to mine, but they didn’t touch me. I growled in response. “The way you feel. The way you make me feel. If I could, I would take away every bad memory you have and replace them with something good.”

This time it was me who moved, but I didn’t go far, just burying my face in his neck and letting my teeth bite into him. I didn’t break the skin, but Cyrus gasped. His hold on me tightened, a hand fisting into my hair.

“Yes…please, Crow. Mark me. Make me yours.”

I sucked his skin hard, drawing the blood to the surface with my mouth in pull after pull. My dick throbbed, but this moment wasn’t about fucking him. I’d finally given him my mouth on his cock, and while he wanted it on his lips, I couldn’t give him that yet, but this I could and would willingly do.

I moved to the other side, only briefly seeing the red splotch on his throat before doing the same in a new spot. Everything between us was animalistic, which suited me well. I knew I wasn’t like most people, that the years up here alone had altered something inside me, but I was okay with that. But he… Cyrus needed it too. I felt it in the way he touched me, saw it in the heat that blazed in his eyes.

When the proof of whom he belonged to was in his skin again, this time it was me who pressed my forehead to his. I didn’t stay long, though, instead dropping my head to the side. With my hand on his nape, I led Cyrus’s mouth to my throat.

“Crow…” he said breathily, before pressing soft kisses to my skin. It made me tingle, made my skin feel like it glowed as he kept doing it over and over again, making designs on me with his mouth before he did what I did to him, drawing me in, biting and sucking until it hurt. I wouldn’t stop him, though. I would have let him keep going and taking what he needed from me, but Cyrus stopped. “Being up here with you is the first time I’ve felt like there isn’t something wrong with me…which is strange because the things we do…most people don’t do them.”

“We aren’t most people.” We were outsiders. Outcasts. And I was going to hold on to that for as long as he allowed me to have it with him. “Let’s make your chair.” Cyrus nodded and jumped down. “See this spot? You missed it. There’s a rough area.”

“Okay.” He smiled at me like I’d just given him a gift. “Will you teach me how to make other things?” I nodded. “And to work on the truck.” I nodded again. “I’ll make it so you never regret bringing me here.”

“I never will, little lamb.” I couldn’t.

We built both the stool and the chair, but I told him we would wait until tomorrow before we finished sanding and staining.

We’d skipped lunch, so I knew we had to make it inside for dinner. I turned off the lights, then grabbed his beanie and pulled it down over his head. When I reached for his coat next, Cyrus looked up at me with watery eyes.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m just trying to figure out how someone who grew up the way you did is so good at taking care of someone else. And how I’m the lucky person you do it with.”

Was this not something people did? Chosen hadn’t with my mom. No one on the compound had, but it felt natural with Cyrus.

“I’m not helpless,” he told me again. Clearly, it was important to him.

I frowned. “I would never think that. You’ve been taking care of yourself your whole life.” And now it was my turn. “I need control. These things make me feel like I have it.”

“These things make me feel important and nurtured.”

And he needed that. I could see it in the way he watched me. When one of his tears slipped free, I brushed it off with my thumb, then sucked it into my mouth.

He moaned. “Everything you do is hot, and you’re not even trying.”

I rolled my eyes and helped him into his jacket, then put my winter wear on, including boots. The moment we stepped outside, a blast of cold air buffeted us. I was used to it but felt Cyrus tremble. We’d gotten some good snow, the ground coated, making it hard to walk. I would have to get out the snowplow soon. I’d been using salt and shoveling a trail for us daily.

As we were traipsing back to the house, I saw movement to the right. I grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“What’s wrong?” Cyrus asked.

“Nothing,” I said softly, then pointed to the white rabbit.

“Oh my God. He’s so cute.”

He heard Cyrus and jumped away.

“It’s a snowshoe hare. They change from brown in the summer to white in the winter.”

“Jesus, is there anything you don’t know?”

I nodded down the mountain. “How to live down there.”

“You’re not missing much.” Cyrus took my hand, threading our fingers together and tugging. “Come on. Let’s go have dinner, and then we’ll start looking for a show to watch. I still want you to try some.”

I…didn’t want that at all. The internet was overwhelming enough sometimes, but because of Chosen, I understood it was something I’d needed to know and that it would help me.

But like everything else, I would do it for Cyrus.

We took our snow boots off on the porch.

“Do most animals hibernate?” he asked when we got inside.

“Yes. We might see some elk, deer, or bighorn sheep, but likely not. Most will move down the mountain some, to find less snowy ranges.”

“There are bighorn sheep on your mountain?”

I smiled. It was beginning to feel more comfortable on my face. “Mm-hmm.”

My head was starting to hurt from all the…everything. I wasn’t used to this, and it took a lot out of me.

“I’ve never seen one in real life. Are they aggressive?”

“Not typically, more so during rutting season.”

Cyrus pumped his brows. “Is this your rutting season?”

I chuckled, something else I was getting more used to doing.

We made tacos for dinner, then Cyrus asked for my laptop. I grabbed it and logged in to the streaming service I’d purchased, then sat beside him on the couch and watched him scroll.

“I’m trying to figure out what kind of show you’d like.”

I didn’t think I would like any, but I kept that to myself.

“Maybe we’ll start with a movie. Have you ever watched a movie?”

I shook my head.

“Not ever?”

“I saw some in foster care, shows played too, but I tuned them out. The outside world wasn’t allowed here.”

“For no one?”

“Chosen had internet access. No one else.”

“Baby,” he said, and I cocked my head.

“Baby?”

“It’s a term of endearment, like I’m hoping little lamb is.”

I knew that, but no one had ever called me baby but Bruce. The way Bruce said it was nothing like the way Cyrus did. It didn’t fill me with warmth like it did coming from Cyrus’s lips.

“Sorry. It just came out.”

“You apologize a lot.”

“Sorr—shit. I know. Comes from a lifetime of messing up or just not wanting to give someone a reason to walk away from me.”

My insides vibrated with anger. I’d always known I would hate the outside world, but I hated it even more since meeting him. I could never like a place that made him feel so bad, so lonely, where there were people who wouldn’t want him. How could anyone smell the sweetness of his skin and want to do anything other than devour him?

“Now you’re mine.” I pressed my finger into the mark on his neck, hoping he knew that meant I didn’t know how to walk away even if I wanted to. Even if he wanted me to.

“Yours,” Cyrus echoed.

“No more talking.”

He nodded, knowing what that meant for me. Cyrus picked a movie about someone kidnapping a guy’s family. We set the laptop on the coffee table, and then he knelt, looking up at me with pleading eyes. When I nodded, he took off my pants and underwear, then relaxed between my legs with my cock in his mouth.

The movie was strange and loud. It made my head throb, so I just carded my fingers through his hair and watched him instead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cyrus

“Do you have any sixes?” I asked Crow as we sat at the table, him in the old chair and me in the one we’d made weeks and weeks ago. We used the same Go Fish cards my mom and I had played with. It was a silly kids’ game, but it was one my mom and I had always played, so it’s what I’d taught Crow.

He shook his head, as he always did instead of saying Go Fish. Maybe because he still didn’t like to talk too much. He still had times when he was quieter or would tell me no more talking. I tried my hardest not to push him when he was quiet and definitely never did when he specifically told me.

I drew a card, our bowls from the stew we’d had for dinner sitting beside us. It was Christmas Eve, something Crow didn’t mention, so I hadn’t either. Did he celebrate holidays? That was a ridiculous question. He likely hadn’t for at least ten years, unless he’d done it alone. Had Christmas been something his cult believed in? I wasn’t a religious person, and my mom hadn’t been either, but she’d loved Christmas. I wanted to share that with Crow, wanted to find a way to give him a special day, but I didn’t know how to do that or if he would even want it.

The holiday wasn’t something I’d considered when I came up the mountain with Crow, and the sadness beginning to weigh heavily on me was unfortunately all too familiar. I missed her, so much, and playing with her cards the day before Christmas, when there were no decorations and I had absolutely nothing to give Crow, bore down on me.

“I don’t think I want to play anymore.” I collected the cards. Crow cocked his head as he handed his over, and I carefully put them back in the box. Holding it in my hand, I went to the couch, where I sat on the corner cushion and hugged the box to my chest. Crow moved around behind me, washing the dishes. He hated leaving them, and usually I tried to do them for him. He still never let me cook, and I had a feeling he didn’t trust eating something he hadn’t made with his own hands.

When he finished, he came over and sat beside me. “Show?” he asked simply. We watched shows and movies together, but I didn’t think he liked them. He watched them for me, and I wasn’t in the mood tonight anyway, so I shook my head.

Crow’s brows drew together, his forehead wrinkling as he studied me with those intense eyes of his. “Am I making you unhappy?”

“No!” I sat straighter. That was the last thing I ever wanted him to think. “I’m sorry. It’s me, not you.” I was probably making him unhappy. He basically had to take care of me, and worry about me, and watch stupid shows for me. I was going to ruin this, ruin everything. “Do you want to fuck me?” I started to go for my flannel bottoms, but Crow stopped me, the lines in his forehead deepening. “Please…I’ll make you feel so good.” I didn’t know how else to prove to him I wanted to be here, how to give Crow anything because I had absolutely nothing to give him.

I tried to take my bottoms off again, but his hold on me tightened. Crow pulled me onto his lap, his arms around me with so much strength, I couldn’t move. “Little lamb…” he said, his forehead pressed to the middle of my back. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“You’re not. I just…miss my mom. I miss her more around this time of year. She loved Christmas and the snow, and I wish she could be here with us. And I wish I wasn’t so helpless and needy and that I had things I could give you too. I want to give you a happy Christmas, and I don’t even know if you celebrate. And I want to be useful to you so I’m not just a man who interrupted your life. I don’t have anything to give you except my ass. Sometimes my mental illness makes these feelings of worthlessness and sadness feel so much bigger, like they’re breaking me down. It lasts a little while; sometimes days, sometimes more.”

He’d deserved those words, but I wished I hadn’t given them to him, knew they would just show him how broken I was, how much work I was.

Crow didn’t speak right away, just flipped me so I lay on my back on the couch, and came down on top of me. He brushed my hair off my forehead and traced the freckles on my face. “You.”

“Me what?”

“You give me you. Not just your ass. All of you. Your…feelings, your words, your smiles. You.” He shook his head as if he was doing something wrong, and my breath caught, unable to break free. “I…” Crow squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again. “Only need you. Mine.” Crow held on to my throat, with just a little pressure, but also brushing his fingers over my pulse.

“Yours,” I promised him, voice cracking. Always and forever I would belong to Crow.

“That’s more than I ever thought I would have, little lamb.” His hold on my neck tightened, and I wrapped my legs around him. My dick was hard now, throbbing against him as I thrust and rolled my hips. “Mine,” he said again.

“Yours,” I said, knowing my throat vibrated against his hand while I spoke. When he let go, I gasped, wanting him to do it again.

Before I could ask, he said, “Tell me about her.”

“My mom?” I played with those long strands of his hair, kept my legs wrapped tight around him. My eyes were already watering because I wanted to share her, so much. The good parts of her that deserved more attention.

Crow nodded, so I did.

“Christmas was her favorite holiday because she said people were kinder this time of year. When we had money, she would spoil me, buy me so many things we couldn’t afford. And when we didn’t, she still tried to make it the best day. We would go outside and have snowball fights and make snow angels. We painted a Christmas tree on the wall once because we didn’t have the money to buy one.”

On and on and on, I shared story after story about my mom with Crow, showing him how special and perfect she was, even though she was an addict. People tended to hear drugs and automatically write someone off as a bad person, but she wasn’t. She was the best person I’d ever known, followed by the man allowing me to keep her memory alive.

“She called me her sun—like sunshine. It’s why she named me Cyrus. It means sun, and she said her world was dark before me and I brought light into her life.”

It wasn’t until Crow began wiping my cheeks that I realized I was crying, tears pouring down in uncontrollable waves. When he couldn’t catch them all with his fingers, he leaned in, mouth against my cheek, kissing and licking them away. I loved it. Loved him. Crow had still never kissed me on the lips, and I longed for it, but this was almost as good, his mouth touching my face over and over and over, catching my salty tears on his lips and tongue.

When they finally stopped falling, he leaned forward, rubbing his scratchy cheek against mine, his beard rough but exactly what I needed.

“One day I want you to take me just like this, Crow, with me on my back and you looking into my eyes so you can see how much I belong to you while you fuck me.”

He gave a deep rumble, buried his face into the side of my throat, bit and sucked.

“Ahhh!” I cried out at the sharp pain, while my hand fisted his hair and I pulled him closer so he knew how much I wanted it.

Crow marked me, making me throb as he pulled the blood to the surface. All too soon, it was over. He eased back and looked down at me, brushing our noses together. “My little lamb…”

I smiled and felt him do the same.

We stayed there for a long while, breathing each other’s air. When he backed away some, I missed the contact. He still lay against me, but our heads didn’t touch. When I saw his smile, though, it was worth it.

With a shaky hand I touched it, traced his lips with my fingers. Then I kissed two of my digits and pressed them against his lips. He sucked them into his mouth, twisting his tongue around them.

“I love you,” I whispered, then held my breath.

Crow released my fingers, confusion clear on his face. “Why?”

“Because I was meant to love you. I exist to love you, to belong to you.”

Crow’s expression was so soft, so gentle, while at the same time, his eyes were wild, untamed. He answered by leaning in and pressing his lips to mine, just once, but it was all the answer I needed. Somehow, even though I wasn’t anything special, Crow loved me too.

“Do you want to tell me about her too? Your mom?”

He tensed against me, his whole body language changing. “Can’t.”

I nodded. “Okay. Maybe one day.” I wished he could share her with me, but I would never push him. What Crow gave me was enough.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Crow

He was beautiful when he slept. I thought he was beautiful all the time, but there was something special about watching Cyrus when he was sleeping. He was so different from me. He was open and honest and wore his heart outside his chest rather than behind a steel barrier the way I did. I didn’t think there was anything he wouldn’t tell me, but when he was sleeping, somehow the barely existing veil was lowered even more. He let go of all his worries, insecurities, and sadness, and was just Cyrus.

I’d never thought someone was beautiful before him. Yes, I’d felt physical attraction. I got turned on and wanted to fuck, but I’d never looked at someone and ached before. I’d never lost my breath because they were so fucking beautiful, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

I never wanted him out of my sight. I didn’t want to sleep because then I couldn’t just look at him and the softness of his features and the roundness of his nose. At the freckles I knew by heart and at his pink tongue when he licked his lips.

I didn’t think it was supposed to be like that. It never had been with anyone on the compound, but then, we were supposed to save most of everything we’d had inside us for Chosen. He had been all that mattered.

Eventually, I forced myself out of bed. My little lamb could sleep through anything and didn’t stir as I got dressed and sneaked from the room. I bundled up in my winter clothes and made my way out to the shop. The cold air bit at my face, snow coming down and making it difficult to see.

I went into my art room first, painting Cyrus exactly how he’d been when I’d left him in bed, lying on his back, one arm thrown over his head, lips parted, one leg sticking out of the blanket.

My worry about him meant I wouldn’t sleep tonight. I’d felt his sadness, the weight of his pain—part depression, part missing his mom. I’d thought about Christmas, of course. I knew it was an important holiday in the outside world, though it wasn’t one I’d ever celebrated. It was forbidden in The Enlightened because it was a man-made holiday. That was the excuse Chosen gave, at least, but in my mind, the real reason was because he always wanted to be the one being praised. He pretended it was God, that he was Chosen by him and that everything he did was to give The Enlightened a chance at being in the presence of God one day, but it was all for him.

I stopped painting, weaving my way through all the paintings of Cyrus. In the back, hiding in the corner, I found one I’d drawn of The Enlightened—one of my first after coming back. I’d missed them, even missed him while hating myself for it. They had been all I’d ever known, and my feelings had still been a tangled mess.

Sometimes still were.

I knelt, brushing my finger over my mom’s smiling face. She deserved for me to share her with Cyrus too, but I didn’t know how to do that, didn’t think I would ever be able to. She died for me because she wanted a better life, and when she was alive, I’d always picked Chosen over her.

I squeezed my eyes shut, hands fisted so I didn’t ruin it, then shoved to my feet and started grabbing paints. On the way out, I grabbed the box I’d been secretly making for Cyrus. At the time, I hadn’t known when I would give it to him, but it would be my Christmas gift for him.

Back in the cabin, I started to paint.

I might not be able to give him my mother, but I could give him this.

*

“Little lamb,” I said gently to a sleeping Cyrus. My heart was beating too fast, had been for hours now because…I think I was excited. The feeling was so foreign to me, one I’d only begun to experience since I met him, but it was the only way I could think to describe the bubbles in my stomach and the speeding of my pulse. “Cyrus,” I said again, tracing my favorite route through his freckles with the tip of my finger.

“I don’t want to get up.” He rolled away from me. “I’m staying in bed today.”

Was this his mental illness talking? I couldn’t fix it; there was nothing to fix. It was a part of Cyrus, but I wanted nothing more than to help ease it. “I brought your pills and some water. I have a surprise for you.” Because of my past, his medication still made me nervous, but I knew he needed it.

Cyrus rolled toward me at that. His face squished up cutely. He looked confused. “Thank you. I don’t know if I’ll be the best company today.”

I was never the best company. While I talked more nowadays, I knew I didn’t give him enough words. He deserved more. “You are the only person I ever want to be around.”

He gave me a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “God, I love you. Come on. Let’s go.”

I got up, and Cyrus sat on the edge of the bed, taking his pills and then following me to the living room. We were both shirtless, in nothing but pajama bottoms, as he padded along behind me.

The second he saw it, Cyrus stilled. I watched him taking it in. He didn’t speak, didn’t move for what felt like an eternity before he said, “You painted a Christmas tree on your wall for me?”

“Yes.” I waited, hoping it was the right thing. Almost immediately, he started crying. It was quiet, but he didn’t have to look my way for me to know. “I can cover it if—”

“No! Please don’t.” He turned to me, his face splotchy. “No one has ever been this nice to me. No one has ever made me feel like I matter. I’ve always been something people can throw away. I don’t know how to deserve this.”

“You already do.” I’d told him last night. Cyrus gave me himself. That was all I needed. “She said you were her sun, but you’re mine too.”

He started to cry harder then, before walking to me. Cyrus wrapped his arms around my shoulders and buried his face in my neck. He took deep breaths, taking in the scent of me. It was something I’d noticed he liked. He did it when he would sit on the floor with my cock between his lips for hours.

We held each other until he calmed down, until the crying finally ceased. He let his emotions free so easily. The last time I cried was when I was twelve years old. Chosen had been upset with me, and I’d needed a beating for Clarity. It had hurt so bad, I’d let the tears flow, and he’d been so disappointed in me. Telling me I wasn’t worthy of being his son and he didn’t think I would ever be Enlightened. Men didn’t cry, according to him, and I had shut down my emotions that day. Now, I thought Cyrus was braver than anyone I’d ever known.

I took his hand, loving the feel of his smaller limb in my grasp.

“Jesus, Crow. This is very good.”

I shrugged, unsure how to take the compliment, but then he saw the box and immediately dropped to his knees, using his finger to trace Cyrus & Cypress, which I’d engraved into the top.

“It’s for your things. To keep them protected.” He didn’t have much from his mom, and I wanted him to have a safe place to keep them rather than just the cardboard.

“I love it. So much.” He still looked down at the box. “Thank you, Crow.”

There was a slight sadness to his voice, one I thought came from a lot of things. “You give me control,” I told him. “That’s something I will always need. I told you last night, you give me more than I ever expected I’d have.”

Cyrus looked up at me, his gray eyes so gentle and open. “I know.”

“Giving you what you need, that is my purpose.” People had joined The Enlightened because they thought Chosen was their way to salvation. It had been ugly and wrong—the things he had done—yet I’d wanted it so badly back then, to make Chosen proud.

Now I knew my salvation was the man in front of me, and it was beautiful and right and I would never let him go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Cyrus

Crow made waffles and eggs for breakfast. While he cooked, I drank my coffee and sent a quick text to Melody to wish her a Merry Christmas. I’d been keeping in contact with her, as promised. It was nice to have a friend, or at least someone who could become a friend.

Crow and I sat together at the table with less heaviness than what had weighed me down the night before. I still felt a little useless, like he was the only one giving and I was just taking. That Crow would be better off without me. But I was fighting like hell not to lose myself to those thoughts. Crow said he wanted me. He said I was all he needed, and I did everything in my power to believe him.

Because mixed up with all that guilt, I felt so happy, I could fly. Crow wanted me, and had painted a Christmas tree on his wall for me, and had built me a box to keep my mom’s things in. He didn’t tell me he loved me, and maybe he never would, but he’d kissed away my tears and pressed his lips to mine one time. His actions showed he cared. That was enough—it was more than I thought I’d ever have.

“Have you ever had a snowball fight?”

Crow grunted, which I took as a no.

“Have you ever just played? Had a good time?”

He gave me that smoldering look, peering at me through the strands of his hair, the verbal no unneeded. Crow hadn’t had a childhood, not really. He hadn’t been raised with any other kids, and had never gone to school, and his father probably taught him those things were beneath him.

“We’re going outside to play in the snow. I don’t care if we’re too old for that kind of thing.”

He frowned.

“It’ll be fun.”

“Too cold.”

“We won’t stay out long, and we’ll stay close to the house. That way, if we need to, we can come right back inside.” I walked over and straddled his lap, facing him. “Please, Crow. I want to give you this.”

He sighed, and I knew I had him even before he let out a soft, “Don’t know how to say no to you.”

“Yes!” I jumped off him, gathered our dishes, and brought them to the sink. I washed them quickly, knowing Crow wouldn’t go anywhere without them taken care of, then grabbed his wrist and dragged him to our bedroom.

He made me wear long johns beneath my pants because Crow was a bit of a daddy, even if he didn’t know it. When we were back in the living room, he was tossing boots, beanies, gloves, scarves, and jackets at me.

It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but the ground was covered in white as far as the eye could see. I was lucky I didn’t fall and bust my head open when I practically bounded down the porch stairs. After finding a good spot, I dropped onto my back, opening and closing my legs and moving my arms to make a snow angel.

I’d landed in a deep spot, snow just falling on top of me as I wiggled to get out of it, before the rough sound of Crow’s laughter made me stop and look up at him from where I was half-covered in snow. His laughter was one of my favorite sounds. I loved it when I was able to make him let loose that way. Crow kept such a tight rein, struggling to let happiness in, that when it bubbled out of him, it filled me with the sun, made it shine out of me uncontrollably.

“Oh, that’s funny, is it?” I asked, struggling to get up.

“Come on, little lamb.” He walked over, took my hand, and tugged me to my feet.

Crow came out every day to clear a path to the shop and the greenhouse, making sure he could get where he needed to go. He led me to the barn, where he kept his truck during the winter. It also housed the truck he was rebuilding, and the snowplow, but he led me toward the back, and my eyes widened. “A snowmobile! Can we ride it?”

This grunt was different from his no earlier, so I grinned. I was learning to understand Crow even when he didn’t use words.

“You’re going to have to teach me. I wish it sat two people.”

“Older ones do. I’ll ride with you at first. I’ll stand in front, you sit on the seat.”

“Okay.”

Crow pulled it out and started the machine. He put the only helmet on me, and while I wanted to argue, I knew that if I did, we wouldn’t ride. “I’m not going to go too far or too fast. Make sure you hold on.”

I rolled my eyes because no shit. I didn’t plan on letting myself tumble off the back of his snowmobile.

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

My gaze snapped to his. Crow had never said something like that to me before. I hadn’t thought it was something he would ever be able to say. “Pout more often. Got it.”

He shook his head and smirked, in a way he wouldn’t have done a month before, then signaled for me to sit on the machine and climbed in front of me, standing up.

“Ready?”

“Yep.”

Crow pressed a button, then turned the throttle, and we started to move. He wasn’t lying when he said he wouldn’t go fast, but still my heart cranked up a notch. Snow flew out behind us, the cold air whipping around us as Crow drove.

He made a bit of a sharp turn, my body moving with it, and a laugh fell out. He increased the speed, trees and the world flashing by us. I wanted one of these. Badly. Before next winter, I would have to find a way to—no. I nipped that thought in the bud. I couldn’t think that way. Couldn’t let myself believe Crow would keep me.

We rode around for a while, and I could tell Crow liked it, could feel the excitement radiating from him. He wanted more, wanted to go faster, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was what he did to give himself a little adrenaline rush during the winter; if he hadn’t done it at all yet because of me.

Crow knew the mountain like the back of his hand and drove us straight to a slightly open area where the trees were thinner. I tapped his leg and shouted, “I want to see you ride!” Because I knew he wanted to let loose. He stopped the machine, climbed off, and cocked his head at me. I tugged off the helmet. “I said I want to see you ride.” His eyes sparked with enthusiasm. “Clearly, you like that idea.”

I climbed off and handed him the helmet. The second he had it on, Crow was off. He stayed close, only going where I could see him, but flying in a way he hadn’t been when I rode with him. He would kick up snow when he made sharp turns, letting loose in a way he rarely allowed himself. He liked this, felt free out here, I could tell. When he went off a little hill and jumped through the air, I gasped. “Holy fuck,” I said when he skidded to a stop in front of me. “That was hot. Why was that so hot?”

Crow took off the helmet and handed it to me. I thought maybe we were going to go back home, a small stab of disappointment landing in my gut, but he said, “Get on.”

“Really?” I beamed, and Crow just nodded. I did as he said, and he attached a key thing to my jacket. “What’s that?”

“If you fall off, it will kill the engine so it doesn’t drive off.”

“You didn’t do that with yourself.”

“You didn’t notice.”

Oh. Oops.

“Brake on the left. Only push it gently. Accelerator on the right, only pull that gently too. Learning throttle control is important.” I nodded, nerves and excitement wrestling in my gut, and I wondered which would win. “This red button is the electricity. It has to be pressed before it starts, which it is now. And turned off afterward.”

I listened closely as Crow explained everything.

“Stay right in this area.”

Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I could do this. What if I wrecked it? What if I got hurt up here or messed up Crow’s machine? “Maybe I shouldn’t…”

Even with his beanie in the way I could tell his brow furrowed. “You can do it, little lamb.”

Hearing that helped rally up the courage inside me. I wanted to make Crow proud, wanted him to see that he was right about me and I could do it. “Okay.”

He stepped back, and I did as he’d said. The machine lurched forward, and I immediately let go of the throttle. Shit. That was silly of me. I tried it again, moving forward at an incredibly slow pace. Eventually, I got the hang of it, and as I went in circles around the space, the pride swelling inside me was the best thing I’d ever felt until I saw Crow looking at me with it too, and then that was the best thing I’d ever felt.

We stayed out there for some time, Crow watching me and cheering me on. After a while, I pulled up beside him and turned it off the way he’d taught me.

“Should go home and get warmed up,” he said, and I reluctantly agreed.

Crow drove again, and I had no idea how in the hell he knew where to go. I would get turned around out here, but it wasn’t long before I could see his home in the distance.

While he put the snowmobile away, I packed the perfect snowball and hid beside the shop.

Crow didn’t see me when he came out. “Cyrus?”

“Over here.” He turned toward my voice, and the second he did, I let the snowball fly. It smacked him right in the face.

He shook the white flecks off himself, and then his gaze caught mine, wild and feral the way it got sometimes. Fear skittered up my spine at first, and I thought I’d fucked up, but then, this was Crow and I trusted him. I would always trust him.

I collected more snow and started to pack it, but he ran after me. Laughing, I took off, tossing it over my shoulder at him. Crow kept coming after me, surprising me with a snowball of his own that hit my back.

Unexpectedly, he tripped and almost fell. I slunk into the trees, trying to hide from him, though I knew my footprints would give me away.

“Little lamb…” he said, his voice throaty.

A tingling sensation shot through me, landing in my groin. I backed away from him, hiding behind trees, a whooshing in my ears.

“Where are you, little lamb?”

Shivers ran the length of me now, but it had nothing to do with being cold. This was…unexpected and hot. My dick throbbed as he called for me, stalking me. Jesus, I wanted to feel hunted by him. I wanted to be Crow’s prey.

I moved through the brush to another tree and ducked behind it. My chest heaved even though I hadn’t exerted very much energy. It was all stimulation, eagerness for this little game I’d accidentally created.

I peeked around the tree, and Crow’s gaze immediately snagged on mine, wild and untamed, like he wanted this too, liked this too.

I turned to run, and Crow came after me. He didn’t catch me, and I had a feeling he could, that he was holding back, like he knew he had an animalistic side that teetered on not feeling human, and if he gave in to that, he would catch me too soon.

Sliding to a stop, I hid behind a thick tree, my breathing coming out even more heavily now. I heard Crow’s footsteps crunching in the snow.

“I’ll find you,” he said. “You can’t hide from me, little lamb. I can smell you…smell how much you want me…the muskiness of your desire, the scent of sugar that always clings to your skin. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to fuck you.”

My knees nearly gave out. That was maybe the hottest thing I’d ever heard. I bolted out from my hiding spot, but Crow was there. I tried to escape him but tripped and fell, his body landing on top of mine.

He growled, burying his face in my throat and sucking in a deep, long breath through his nose. He took in my scent, rubbed his beard against me like he was some kind of wolf. “I want to fuck you out here, just like this, like I’m an animal and you’re my prey.”

“Oh God.” I seriously almost busted a nut just hearing him say that. I arched toward him, rubbing our bodies together. The winter gear kept me from feeling him the way I needed. “Fuck me, Crow.”

He nipped at me, but the stupid clothes were getting in the way.

“Touch me,” I ordered, but Crow didn’t move from the way he held me down, thrusting against me while breathing me in.

Continuing our game, I pushed him off, and Crow let me. I shoved to my feet and ran but couldn’t get far, not that I wanted to. He blocked me in against a tree, his hair hanging in his face—he’d lost his beanie at some point—and slowly stalked closer.

“Crow…” I begged when he reached me, and pushed my fingers through his hair. Still no words. Somehow I knew I wouldn’t get any for a while. Crow had checked out, or at least part of him had, and he was giving in to the baser needs inside him.

I loved this Crow just as much as I did the other one.

“Please…take me. Remind me I’m yours. Show me how much you want me.”

Crow gave a deep snarl in response, picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, stalking toward the house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Crow

He felt so fragile in my arms, though I knew my little lamb was anything but.

Still, I liked how small he felt, liked his gentle bone structure beneath my hands and wrapped around my body. Loved that I could easily carry him into the house, my dick throbbing with the need to be inside him in a way I’d never craved another person’s body before.

Cyrus wiggled in my hold as if wanting to escape. It had taken everything in me not to rip his clothes off and take him right there in the snow—though I would never risk him in temperatures like these. But the predatory nature inside me, which had grown in all these years of solitude, now surged and bubbled over to the point where I barely felt human, where I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep my need for him under control.

This was a game…but not, and I was lucky my little lamb wanted to play with me.

I set him on his feet the moment I stepped inside, and he frowned as though he hadn’t expected that. My hair hung in my face, eyes hard on him as I looked at Cyrus through the strands. When he ran, I smiled, enjoying the still unfamiliar feel of it on my face and knowing it was all because of the man pretending to try and escape me. I took off after him, both of us throwing jackets and scarves as we went through the house. He turned into our room before I did, and I slowed my pace, stalked him unhurriedly, my skin prickling as I went.

Cyrus had gotten his boots off and was standing beside the bed, as if knowing there was nowhere he could go.

“What are you going to do to me?” He took one step backward, the backs of his legs hitting the mattress.

My steps were measured as I approached him. I didn’t use words, just ripped his shirt over his head. My breathing was ragged, Cyrus’s was too, the two sounds alternating and making a rough melody together.

Cyrus fell onto the bed. My mind was so full of my desire for him that one second I was opening his pants and the next they were off, underwear too, and I didn’t even remember doing it. He lay horizontally on the bed, knees at the edge and feet hanging over. His pretty cock was swollen and pink, the head redder and leaking with his need for me.

I gave a simple up-nod, and Cyrus scrambled to move on the mattress so his head was on our pillows, then looked up at me.

My clothes came off next, me ripping and tugging at them until they joined Cyrus’s on the floor. I crawled onto the bed, knees planted as I held myself above him.

“Crow…”

A series of trembles raced down my spine, one after the other. The way he said my name, it made energy palpate through my body and everything inside me throb. I buried my face into his neck and pulled in a deep breath. He practically twitched beneath me, with what I thought was the urge to touch me, to pull me to him, but Cyrus was so good and fought it off for me.

I licked at where I saw the beat in his neck. “I can taste your pulse,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Yes…God yes…”

I licked it again, my hair brushing against his chest as I worked my way down his body, smelling him, nibbling his pale skin, sucking pink bruises onto his chest until I reached his groin. I settled between Cyrus’s legs, eyes meeting his and seeing desire mixed with emotion. I watched him as I nuzzled my face in there too, inhaling the musky scent of him, until my nose was burrowed into his balls.

“Christ, Crow. Please,” he begged, going from pretending to fear me to needing me.

I licked his sac, tasting the salt on his skin. This I would do while facing him. I didn’t know why it was different than fucking him, but I knew I had to give Cyrus something. He deserved all the secret parts of me I never shared with anyone, some that I hadn’t even known were there.

I took his cock into my mouth, sucked it to the back of my throat while my fingers sneaked behind his balls and slid between his cheeks.

I didn’t talk during sex, not in the way I knew he wanted me to, but the words threatened to spill out now…open your pretty legs for me, give me your hole…you’re mine…mine to fuck and mine to love.

I teased his rim while straining to hold myself back. Cyrus thrust into my mouth, eyes closed, head shaking from side to side like he wasn’t sure he could hold on to his restraint either.

With my dick throbbing, I pulled off him, flipped him, and grabbed the lube from the nightstand. Tossing it to the bed, I was between his legs again, ass spread, his tight, pink hole waiting for my tongue.

I loved eating him. Loved the fine hairs over his peachy ass, and the wrinkles of his tight rim, and what it felt like to have him soften for me, to push my tongue inside his body and claim him that way.

“Please, baby. Please,” he begged, and a snarl escaped my mouth. I hadn’t understood why anyone would want to be called that, but hearing it from him now, when he was beneath me, open and needy, it made me feel like the king of the jungle, the alpha, like I belonged to him the way Cyrus belonged to me.

Chosen had owned me, and that had done nothing but hurt me, yet this…this was like Cyrus was showing me who I was, not telling me who I had to be. Like I’d been lost, and the only way to be found was through him.

I buried my face in his ass, licking at his hole. He tasted heady and mine, all this feeling and need going straight to my head and melting my brain. One hand on each cheek, I held him open, devoured him, made a meal of him, needing only Cyrus to sustain me. Stiffening my tongue, I pushed it inside him, fucking him with it. Cyrus moaned, said my name—Crow, then baby, mumbling words I couldn’t make out but didn’t need to. I knew what they meant.

He needed this, needed me, wanted more. He could take everything from me, and I would give it willingly, knew without a doubt that Cyrus would give me all of himself too. It wasn’t healthy. Even with my lack of knowledge of people I understood that, but I didn’t care. Chosen had always said his purpose was the Lord and what the Lord chose for him to do, but Cyrus was my purpose. My redemption.

My hunger for him grew with each press of my tongue inside him. Pulling back, I sucked two fingers and pushed them in next. “Mine,” I gritted out, biting and kissing his ass cheeks.

“Show me. Show me I’m yours. Make me believe you.”

I let out another growl, pushing to my knees. My fingers fumbled with the lube before I opened it, slicked up my cock, lay against his back, and pushed into him in one swift thrust.

“Yes! Show me!” he ordered again, hands fisting in the pillows. I pulled out to the tip, then snapped my hips forward again, over and over and over, taking him hard, railing into his willing hole.

Cyrus arched back to meet me, guttural sounds pushing past his lips as his ass made greedy pulls on my dick. He was so tight around me, like his body was made for mine. I lost myself to the sounds of skin slapping against skin, of our rough breathing, strangled cries in this form of heaven we made together.

Need crackled beneath my skin. I wanted my dick inside him all night. Wanted to fill him with my cum and watch it spill out of him, then fuck it back in again. “Mine,” I said close to his ear again, Cyrus’s body pliant beneath mine.

“Oh God, right there. Fuck me harder.”

My head spun, or maybe it was the room. Maybe the world had stopped spinning, and we were the only two people left in it. I didn’t let up on him, hammering that spot inside him with hard, fast snaps of my hips until Cyrus’s hole tightened around my cock, his body vibrating and shuddering against my skin.

It was all I needed, his orgasm coaxing my own out as lights and colors flashed behind my eyelids, my teeth bared before I sucked the skin at his shoulder into my mouth and came in his ass, filling him with my cum.

We lay there, catching our breath, my dick twitching and still pumping my release inside him. When I began to soften, I pulled out, lying on my side and pulling him into my arms. “My little lamb,” I whispered into his hair.

“I love you. So much.”

I love you too.

“Too hard?” I asked, slipping my fingers between his ass cheeks.

“Perfect.”

I smiled and pushed my fingers inside him, feeling my release there, hot and thick and right where it belonged.

“Come.” Getting out of bed was the last thing I wanted, but I knew how Cyrus liked his baths, and I wanted to take care of him, wanted to make sure he knew he was more than just a hole to me, even if I couldn’t give him those words right then.

He nodded, let me take his hand and lead him to the bathroom. I started the bath, then took a washcloth and knelt behind him, cleaning him up some. Cyrus bent over the counter so I could get to him better. His rim was red and puffy. I kissed it, getting my own cum on my lips before wiping at it again.

“Sex has never been as raw and honest as it is with you,” he told me.

It didn’t feel like enough. I wanted to give him everything. Wanted every part of him to be mine, for Cyrus to melt into me and for us to be one.

I stood up and turned him so we were facing each other. “Don’t move,” I ordered, and he nodded. My heart banged against my chest, blood rushing through my ears as I leaned in and pressed my lips to his again.

Cyrus started to shake, but he did his best not to shift even an inch. He was so good for me, always so good for me. It was that thought that made me lash at his lips with my tongue, tasting them this way for the first time.

“Open.” My lips brushed his as I muttered that one word, and he did. I flicked my tongue into his mouth and nearly went weak in the knees. This…yes, I wanted this, so much. He tasted so sweet, so mine. “You can move now, little lamb,” and when I pushed my tongue into his mouth again, he danced his with mine, kissing and sucking, licking and tasting. I was drunk off him, addicted to him, hands on his hips, fingers pressing into his skin as I kissed and kissed and kissed. I was mesmerized with how our tongues moved together, how they played and wrestled, and the feel of his smaller body against mine. My hands tangled in his hair, never wanting this moment to end.

When he whimpered, I swallowed it down. Was this what kissing was like for everyone? I didn’t think so. It hadn’t been for me all those years ago, and nothing between Cyrus and me was like it was between anyone else.

I didn’t stop kissing him as I walked him to the tub, as I tapped his leg for him to lift it and get in. I turned the water off and lay with my back against the tub. He turned his head, my hand on his cheek as I kissed and kissed and kissed.

“I like this.” Cyrus smiled, and I kissed that too. There was nothing like his smile. It lit me up from the inside out.

“I don’t know if I can ever stop,” I admitted.

This earned me a second smile. “You don’t ever have to.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Cyrus

One week turned into two, then three, and more that followed. Being on the mountain with Crow was like a dream. Every day with Crow felt better than the last, even the ones where I felt sad. There were a few days when my depression was so bad, I only got out of bed to go to the bathroom, and Crow didn’t make me feel bad about that. He didn’t have expectations of me, didn’t tell me it was a choice and that I should just snap out of it as though it were easy.

He just…brought me food to our bed.

Lay with me.

Let me relax between his legs with his dick in my mouth because cock-warming him made me feel settled…connected, in this way that wasn’t possible with anyone except him. The times I snapped at him, got frustrated with him for no reason, he didn’t yell at me about that either. When I’d told him I wanted to be alone, he’d nodded and did as I asked. I’d heard him pacing in the hallway, and though I hadn’t been able to draw it to my lips, I’d felt a smile deep inside.

But other than those few days, we’d just…been together. February had arrived too quickly. It felt like I’d just moved up the mountain with him.

We fucked a lot, Crow always behind me, railing into me, reminding me I was his. We played cards and watched shows. We started to work on the truck, but it was cold, and being outside too long wasn’t something we did a lot of. Crow was always worried about safety and being careful. I didn’t know if that was just for me, or if he was the same when I wasn’t there. But he’d taken me out to ride the snowmobile a couple of times. I was still shit at it, and I could tell it made him nervous, but I was getting a little better.

Sometimes I would bundle up on the porch and watch him use the snowplow. Next year I’d have him teach me how to use that. I wanted to be able to do everything Crow was able to do on this mountain, wanted to love it and take care of it the way he did. When he disappeared into his room in the shop was when I usually called Melody, the two of us sometimes chatting for hours.

And the kissing, Christ, all the kissing. It was as if Crow had decided to make up for a lifetime without it and could hardly keep his mouth from mine. He was obsessed with it, and I loved the thought of him being obsessed with me in any and every way.

My Christmas tree was still on the wall. I’d wondered if he would paint over it, but Crow kept it up, and I didn’t mention it. Seeing it made me happy, made me feel loved.

He still didn’t say the words, but I didn’t need him to—not most of the time. I felt it in everything he did, how he treated me and the way he looked at me. Unfortunately, I was still me, and my depression tried to smother my happiness sometimes, telling me he’d eventually tire of me, that he didn’t really want me, that I was a hole to him, and that one day I would fuck it up and lose him. I tried so hard not to let those words in, but it was difficult not to when they were spoken in my voice, always in my head, waiting to attack.

Crow was sleeping now. He was doing much better at getting rest while we were in bed together. He still woke easily, and I had no doubt that the second I moved, he would stir, but still, I worked my way down his body, tossing the blankets away as I went.

I looked up at him from between his thighs to see him staring down at me with a cocked brow. “What do you want to do today?” I pressed a soft kiss to his sac. “We can stay in bed all day.” I nuzzled beneath his balls because the musky scent of him was one of my favorite things.

Crow didn’t respond, something I was used to by now. He just ran his fingers through my hair.

“I could keep your cock between my lips the whole time.” I sucked him, felt him begin to harden against my tongue. I let him fall out so I could say, “We can have another snowball fight…or we can play some games online…” It was something I’d started to do on Crow’s laptop. He would watch, and then he started helping me with moves and then playing them himself. “You can read to me…or I can read to you.”

I licked from his sac up to the tip of his erection, which was definitely hard now, then sucked him back into my mouth. Taking Crow deep, I swallowed when his prick hit the back of my throat. My hand joined in, jerking him while I blew him. Pleasuring Crow gave me pleasure. I didn’t always have to come, didn’t need it right now, just wanted to see the bliss on his face, wanted to swallow his release because I loved knowing I had some of Crow inside me.

He groaned deeply, hand fisting in my hair, his hips thrusting so he fucked my willing mouth. Sex with Crow was always indescribable, this energy that would pulse and throb inside me for hours and days afterward. I had never been the type to believe in destiny or soulmates, but that was before Crow. Sometimes it felt like the whole world was only created so the two of us could find each other, like we were the point of it all. It was selfish thinking, but there were parts of me that had and would always be selfish.

His hot, hard cock throbbed against my tongue. I could feel the tension in him, could tell he was about to come by the quickening of his movements and the wildness of his eyes.

Crow arched up, dick in my throat, and spurted. I was ravenous for his cum, wanted to drain his balls every single day because his cum was all mine. I swallowed until there was nothing left, then rested my cheek on his thigh, suckling his soft dick.

“We will do whatever you want. It’s all I ever want to do.”

I smiled around his dick and sucked. We lay there like that, Crow playing with my hair for at least an hour before I kissed his soft prick and sat up. “First, breakfast and medication.”

He nodded and followed me up. We didn’t get dressed, the two of us heading into the kitchen. I took my pills while Crow decided what he wanted to make. He settled on French toast. I sat on my stool while he made the food.

“Your pills…they don’t always work,” he said, brows furrowed. “Why?”

The question surprised me, but then, I’d had a down day not too long ago. Sometimes I forgot he had no experience with doctors or mental illness. “Nothing is ever perfect. But I have way more good days than bad. There are times when the bad days beat the good, and then the doctor will up my dose or change my medication. I would be…a mess without them. I mean, I’m a mess with them, but it would be a million times worse.” It had been worse many times—mood swings, self-harm, suicidal ideation, feeling the hopelessness of it all weigh down on me.

“You’re not a mess.” He surprised me by reaching over and playfully smacking my arm gently with the spatula. It was so rare for Crow to be playful, so I soaked it up when he was. I was likely the only person in the world who had ever seen this side of him.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice. You might have to kiss it and make it better.”

He came over and did just that, then returned to cooking.

Without looking at me, while flipping the French toast, he said, “My mother…she would get sad sometimes.” I didn’t move, tried not to breathe. Crow was incredibly protective of his mom. I’d asked about her more than once, and he always shot me down. “Chosen would…he would get angry. He would flaunt other women in front of her, tell her she wasn’t worthy of him, that he and God should be enough to keep her happy.”

My hands fisted. I waited a moment, wondering if Crow would say anything else, but when he didn’t, just plated my food and handed it over, I said, “She might have had some kind of mental illness, or maybe life was just hard and she had bad days. There are so many things it could be. Even with me, I’ve been seeing doctors since I was a teenager. First they said I had depression, then that I was bipolar. But I never had the full manic periods, so that didn’t really fit me. They said you can present differently when you’re a teenager, so maybe that was why. Then they wondered if it could be a personality disorder. They tossed around borderline personality disorder. I did DBT—dialectical behavior therapy—where we focused on mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotional regulation. Medication for borderline symptoms is similar to bipolar or even treatment-resistant depression, so that’s what I take. I often just say I have depression or mental illness, but who knows, really.” The actual diagnosis didn’t matter as much to me. I just needed the help to fight my symptoms and try to have some kind of life.

I had to bite back the questions. I wanted to ask about his mom and the night everything changed. I’d read that he’d been feral and covered in blood when someone from the cult alerted the authorities. But I didn’t know if he knew why, what he’d seen, what kind of relationship he’d had with her. I just knew Crow was the kind of man who would blame himself even if it wasn’t his fault.

“Do you want to talk about her?”

“No!” he snapped, then closed his eyes. “I don’t…can’t. That’s enough.”

“I found my mom,” I admitted. For a moment, I wished I could suck the words back in, thinking that maybe I was telling him to try to get him to talk about his mom, but that wasn’t it. It was important to me to talk about Mom. I needed to show Crow all the parts of me, hoping he’d love me regardless.

“What happened?” he asked, knowing I needed him to.

“She relapsed. I found her passed out with a needle. She’d aspirated. I’d lain with her for hours before calling 911.” My head tilted down, the past trying to pull me under, but I fought it. It was good to speak about it. Talking helped.

Crow turned the stove off and came around the counter. “I’m sorry you lost her.”

“Me too.” I leaned into him, rested my head against his pec. “I overdosed before I went into rehab. I could have died, Crow, and all I can think is that if I had, I would’ve never met you. Sometimes I miss it, the way drugs can help you forget, but I don’t miss it while I’m on the mountain with you.”

He hooked his hand beneath my chin and tilted my head up. “Then you’ll have to stay forever.”

I smiled, and he kissed it, teased my lips with his tongue until I was drunk off him.

When my stomach growled, Crow chuckled and pulled away. “You need to eat.”

“Make your plate too, so we can eat together. Then I want…hmmm…let’s work on the truck for a while and then play a game of Stalk Cyrus.”

He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “One day, little lamb,” and like always, I knew what he meant. One day he would share more with me too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Crow

“Do you want to go for a walk with me, Crow?” Mom asked, making me smile. I wanted that more than anything. She loved this mountain the way I did, loved the smell of the earth, the comfort of the trees, and being surrounded by so much life. That’s what the mountain was to us—life. Animals and plants, all the living, breathing things that made this world a beautiful place.

I couldn’t speak like that around Chosen, and I tried not to do it with my mother either. I knew she would like it but that it would make Chosen mad. As much as I loved to share those things with her, I worried that if I did, I would disappoint him, and there was nothing in the world I hated more than that.

He was…well, he was Chosen. He was the most Enlightened of us all. To show love for other things was less love you could give him when he deserved it all.

My feet moved toward her like they had a mind of their own, but then I stopped, gaze darting back to the compound. Chosen wouldn’t like it. There was work to be done, and he wanted me to see Hillary again today. That was what men did, and if I wasn’t devoting my time to him or what he wanted from me, I should be with her. It would make a man out of me, though it didn’t feel that way. I didn’t like it, and she always wanted me to look at her, which made it harder. It wasn’t her fault. It was me who was broken.

“Crow… We should be able to go for a walk together. It’s… Never mind. You’re right.”

“No!” I rushed out before she could change her mind. I missed her. The older I got, the more responsibility Chosen gave me—I always had to do more to prove I was worthy of being his son. It left me barely any time to spend with her. “We can go on a short one.”

Mom smiled, and it warmed my chest. Her smile was one of my favorite things. When she did it, I couldn’t stop myself from doing the same.

We headed off into the woods. Neither of us worried about getting lost. This had been my home for sixteen years. It was all I knew.

“How are you doing?” Mom asked as we strolled along.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

I was fine. Of course I was fine. There was no other option.

“We just don’t get to spend as much time together as I’d like. I never know what you’re up to, and—”

“That’s between me and Chosen.” How could she even hint that I should share with her? We were all told only the things we needed to be told, the things we could understand. There was a reason for everything, and we were not Enlightened enough to understand it. Only Chosen was. She didn’t know how often I’d go in for pain when I disappointed him and needed Clarity. She didn’t know about Hillary. It wasn’t her place.

“Crow… I…” She swiped at her eye, and I could have sworn she wiped a tear away. My heart ached. Was she sad again? Fear gripped me at the thought. If she was, Chosen would get angry. There was no reason for her to be upset when she was on the path to true Enlightenment, when she was with Chosen and serving her purpose.

Tell her. Tell her there are things you don’t like. Tell her there are things that feel wrong.

No!

What was wrong was me questioning Chosen. Even if it was only in my head. I should never. He was everything, had the ear of God. He was the only way to Salvation.

There was a soft crackling noise in the distance. I looked up to see two deer. “Shh,” I told her. I pointed, and she turned to them, offering them one of her kind smiles, the ones that made me feel like I was the most important person in her world, though I shouldn’t be. Those spots were reserved for Chosen and God.

“You have a sixth sense when it comes to animals. I didn’t even hear them.”

She was right. It was one of the things I was most proud of. It made me feel more connected to this world, to the mountain. They didn’t ask of me any of the things Chosen or anyone else did.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force those thoughts from my head. They were wrong. When I got back to the compound, I should be punished.

“Crow?” Mom said my name so softly, filled with so much emotion, that I didn’t understand. I opened my eyes and looked at her, pleaded with her silently not to say something that would make Chosen upset with her. “I love you, Crow. I know I don’t say that enough. I know we’re not supposed to, but I love you more than anything in this world, and everything I’m doing is for you. One day you’ll see, one day you’ll understand, and—”

“Understand what? And no. That’s wrong. You’re not supposed to love me more than anything. It’s wrong!”

I love you too. So much.

Tears filled her eyes. “My sweet boy. I’m doing everything in my power to fix what I allowed to get broken. I will fix it for you.”

“Stop.” I shook my head, put my hands over my ears. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I knew it was wrong, knew it was bad, that Chosen wouldn’t like it. “Let’s just…let’s just go back.”

She hesitated for a moment, then gave me a brokenhearted smile.

We didn’t talk on the way back to the compound. When we arrived, Chosen was there waiting for us. My heart stopped.

“What were you doing? Where did you take my son?”

“We just went for a walk. It’s a lovely day, and—”

“And you should know better,” Chosen cut Mom off. “You didn’t ask. There is work to do.” He turned to me. “Crow, you are late for Worship.”

But I didn’t have prayer yet. It wasn’t time. I opened my mouth to say that, but Mom gave me a quick shake of her head. My mouth clamped closed again.

To Mom, he said, “You’ll be punished for him. He can’t seem to find Clarity through his own lessons. Maybe he’ll find them through yours.”

“No! Don’t!” I didn’t want her to hurt for me. It was my fault. I’d known I shouldn’t have gone.

“Now she gets extra time for your outburst.”

My gaze snapped to hers, and she shook her head again.

And I listened. For the rest of my life, I would hate myself for listening.

“Go.” Chosen told her, and she went. I watched until she disappeared from view. “What did she tell you?”

“Nothing,” I lied, knowing it was wrong, knowing that we should never lie to Chosen.

“Do you know why I named you Crow?” he asked, making me frown.

“No, Chosen.”

“They are often seen as a bad omen. They’re associated with death. But they’re also intelligent animals, watchful, thoughtful, and are supposed to have incredible insight. Which path you take is up to you. Will you be the downfall of us all? Will you follow the ways of the Lord, become Enlightened and fulfill your destiny, or will you cause death and destruction? That’s where free will comes in, and I worry about your choices, Crow.”

Without another word, Chosen walked away. As much as I wanted to cry, I didn’t allow myself to. I would do the right thing. I would fulfill my destiny. I would walk at Chosen’s side, Enlightened.

I jerked awake, chest tight, heart stampeding, my mind flashing with images I didn’t want to see.

Mom bloody.

Chosen hurting her.

Chosen killing.

He’d told me only the day before that I had a choice. I should have chosen to get her out, should have seen that what he was doing was wrong. Instead, I’d been the reason she died.

I stumbled out of bed, head spinning, lungs hurting each time I took a breath. I fell several times as I staggered out of the room, through the house, needing fresh air, because inside was too stifling. I tumbled out the door, sprawled into the snow, my body freezing, skin feeling like it was falling off, stinging, teeth chattering.

Seconds passed. Minutes? Hours? Days? Couldn’t be. I would be dead, but then Cyrus was there, the one who taught me to smile again, something I hadn’t done since that day in the woods with my mom.

The mom I won’t share with him. Can’t. Because I caused her death.

“Crow? What are you doing? Oh my God. You’re naked in the middle of a snowstorm!”

A blanket wrapped around me, and I immediately shook him off. He stumbled, teeth rattling together as I snarled at him.

“Crow…baby, please. Come inside. I need you to come inside.”

The word baby broke through the fog in my head. Cyrus was outside. He was freezing. He hardly had any clothes on. Cyrus, who would get sick if I didn’t get him inside. Cyrus, who loved me.

I had caused one death already. I couldn’t survive losing him.

I tugged him close, my body already struggling to move, like my insides were nothing but icicles, and we toppled into the house together, Cyrus kicking the door closed.

“I…heard…you…the door…I looked…out…window…threw…clothes on…” He tried to speak through the shivers racking his body. Good. So I hadn’t been out there long. “Baby…”

I pulled him to me, wrapped him in my arms, savored the warmth of him, the feeling of Cyrus, my sun, warming my insides, even if I didn’t deserve it.

“Warm,” I managed to say. It was the only word I could set free, though so many more banged against the door of my mind, trying to dive out.

We staggered into the kitchen. I turned on the faucets, getting the water hot and filling two cups, which we drank. Then I pulled Cyrus into the bathroom, the heat already doing its job, starting to warm us as I turned on the tub to fill it.

I held him again, the two of us trembling against each other.

I’m sorry I can’t share her with you.

Sorry I’m not right.

That you’re cold because of me, when it’s my job to take care of you. To protect you.

I love you.

I ripped Cyrus out of his clothes, and then we climbed into the bath together, the water feeling like needles against my skin.

It was Cyrus who wrapped me in his embrace this time, his fingers running through my hair. “Shh. It’s okay. I’m here. I love you.”

Other than my mom, Cyrus was the only person who’d ever loved me, and I hoped I didn’t ruin him, the way I’d done with her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Cyrus

I held Crow as the tears flowed. I had no idea what happened. Usually I was such a heavy sleeper that it was difficult to wake me, but that hadn’t been the case this time. I’d heard him, my instincts immediately on alert, the heaviness in my gut telling me something was wrong. I still didn’t know what, but in that moment it didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was Crow.

Crow, who gripped me like he was afraid if he let go, I would disappear. Crow, whose rough beard rubbed against my skin and whose fingers dug into my muscles while I stroked his head and tried to make sure he knew I would always be there. That no matter what it was, we would get through it together and he would never spend time on this mountain alone again if he didn’t want to.

Eventually, he calmed down, his hot tears landing on my skin slower and slower until they dried up again. Still, he didn’t let me go. There was fear in his hold…and sadness, but there was also love. How, I wanted to ask him. How can you love someone as broken as me? But then maybe that was why he could—we’d both been dropped time and time again, cracks in our armor, little pieces of us breaking off, but somehow, together, we filled in each other’s imperfections. All my cracks and chips were sealed in by Crow, and his by me.

We stayed in the water as long as we could. When it was getting too chilled, I brushed my mouth close to his ear and said, “Let me take you to bed, baby.”

He nodded. I knew Crow well enough by now to know he wouldn’t be giving me any words tonight, or if he did, they would be few. He stood first, then held his hand out for me. Even in situations like this, when he was hurting, Crow still tried to take care of me, still did his best to cling to whatever control he could, and I felt release in allowing him to have it. The way he took care of me stripped away years of loneliness, of feeling unloved, of being scared and not knowing what to do, of being thrown away. It was just another way we fit together so perfectly, but at the same time, I still longed to be able to give that to Crow sometimes too. To be the place where he knew he could break down and I would be the legs to hold him up.

So I let Crow help me stand, we got out, and I took the towel from him and began drying him off. He gave me that confused, squinty-eyed, wrinkled-forehead look, his hair more scraggly than usual and half wet. I smiled at him. “I want to do this for you. I want to give this to you. You’ll never have to face anything alone again.”

The look in his eyes changed, softened, yet seemed hungry too, before he gave me a small nod.

Crow gave himself to me, allowed me to dry him. I started at his front, his chest, stomach, then knelt as I dried his thighs and lower legs, one, then the other. “Turn around for me.”

He did as I said, and this time I worked my way up to his muscular thighs and firm, slightly furry ass, then his back and shoulders, and finally his hair.

Leaning in, I pressed my lips to his shoulder, wrapped my arms around his waist. “You say I’m yours, but you’re mine too, Crow. We belong to each other.” With one more gentle kiss to his back, I wiped any remaining water, then dried myself.

He let me take his hand and lead him to the bed. We climbed in, and I lay on top of him. “Is this okay?” I traced circles in the hair on his chest with my finger. Crow nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He turned his head to the side, the pain in his eyes palpable, squeezing and tightening my chest.

“It’s okay.” I went to slide down his body, but Crow stopped me, holding my face in his hands and bringing our mouths together. He pushed his tongue between my lips, taking from me what he needed, giving me what he couldn’t with words.

Our tongues moved together, slow and languid and like we could make this moment last forever, live right here, just feeding from each other’s mouths. The kiss told me I’m sorry even though he didn’t need to say that to me. I want to give you something, which I appreciated even though I didn’t need it either. I knew Crow’s heart, and that was what mattered.

When the kiss ended, I started to work my way down his body, my lips following a trail down his torso. Now that I could do things like this with him, I wanted to do them all the time. Settling between his legs, I took his soft cock into my mouth, suckling it. Even flaccid, Crow was something to marvel at. I loved doing this for him, loved the feel of him against my tongue, being a place for his cock to rest, because every part of Crow deserved to be worshipped. It was a deeper way to connect, a way to both give and take what each of us needed, and luckily for us, the things we craved merged together, met perfectly in the middle.

Crow massaged my scalp while I warmed his cock, until eventually, he fell into much-needed sleep.

*

I woke up before Crow, which rarely happened. I’d fallen asleep with my head on his hip and his fingers in my hair.

Frowning, I sat up, shaking his shoulder gently. “Crow?”

His eyes jerked open, Crow moving so quickly, I wasn’t sure what happened before he’d shot up, flipped me, and lay on top of me, holding me down with wild eyes.

“Baby?” I said, and that seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he was in. His gaze turned horrified, wide-eyed in a different way as he scrambled off me, back pressed against the headboard, as if trying to get as far away from me as possible. “Hey, it’s okay. I just startled you. You weren’t going to hurt me, Crow. I’m not afraid of you.” Still, my heart banged against my chest as if trying to break through.

Crow cocked his head, seeming more like the man I’d met months ago than the one I’d grown to know. He always had those moments of quiet when he pulled away, reminding me that he’d been completely alone for ten years and grew up in a way I would never understand, and that he belonged to this mountain more than anything else. But I hadn’t seen him so…confused? Skittish? Unsure? Not for a while.

“Baby?” Air struggled to pull through my lungs, feeling like someone was stacking weight on them, more and more and more with each second slowly ticking by, until…

“Little lamb…”

“Yes. God yes.” My eyes teared up, wetness pooling in them. I didn’t know what I thought was going to happen. That he’d forgotten me? That he would send me away? The latter was always a fear for me, and that would probably never change. I wasn’t sure my mental illness would allow it to. No matter how much I trusted Crow, that fear of abandonment always sneaked in.

“Don’t cry.” He cupped my cheek, brushed his thumb beneath my eye, swiping at the wetness. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m just emotional.” I snuggled into his hand, savoring Crow’s hot skin against mine. God, I could bask in the warmth of him and never ever tire of it.

He gave me a small, sad smile, like his lips were testing out the movement again and he wasn’t sure he could allow it. When he pulled away, I missed the contact instantly. Crow wobbled when he stood, reaching out to catch his balance.

“Hey, what is it? What’s wrong?” I clambered out of bed and wrapped my arm around him. His skin practically sizzled to the touch. I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t normal hot. He was blazing. “Jesus. You’re burning up.”

I tugged him down, pressed my lips to his forehead. I had no idea if that really worked or why people chose the lips. I just knew my mom used to do it to me when I was younger.

“You definitely have a fever. Let’s get you back into bed.”

Crow shook his head. I was about to argue when he said, “Piss.”

“Okay, let me help you.”

I was surprised he allowed me to keep my arm around him as we made our way into the bathroom. Crow had always seemed invincible, like there was nothing he couldn’t do and he didn’t need anyone, but both last night and this morning I was seeing a different side of him.

He sat on the toilet rather than standing to pee, hand between his legs and holding his dick to aim. Once he finished, he let me help him back to bed. He immediately pulled the blankets over himself, body trembling, but he didn’t complain. That wasn’t Crow. He would never complain.

“I know you’re cold, but we need to get your fever down. Where’s the thermometer? Oh, and Tylenol or Advil?”

He shook his head. “No. Pills.”

Fear climbed up my throat, coming out in, “Crow, we have to get your fever down! You have to take something.” I knew he had issues with medication, that he didn’t go to doctors, but I hadn’t considered what happened when he got sick.

“No! Sleep.”

“Do you at least have a thermometer?”

He nodded, pointing to the bathroom. I went and looked in the cabinets and found one. What happened if he just got a headache? When he got a cold? What if Crow got really sick?

I went back to him. He had his eyes closed, blanket tight around himself.

“Baby, open your mouth. I need to take your temperature.”

He didn’t answer, worry now making my hand shake. “Crow, open your mouth. Please. I need you to do that for me.”

Those words seemed to work. I slipped the thermometer under his tongue, and he closed it again. When it beeped, it immediately flashed red, and I saw it was one hundred and three.

Shit…shit. What did I do?

“I’ll be right back,” I told him, hurrying from the room. It wasn’t as if Crow was going to respond anyway.

I got ice packs from the fridge, cold water, and a cup of ice. So they wouldn’t be too much of a shock to his system, I wrapped the packs in towels and said, “I’m going to put these on you to try and lower your temperature. Can you suck on this ice for me?”

Crow didn’t answer, didn’t move.

I pressed the cold compresses to his body, then lay in bed beside him.

Please be okay.

Don’t let me fuck this up.

I need you.

I love you.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Crow

Hot.

Cold.

Hot.

Cold.

My head throbbed.

My chest hurt.

I could hear the wheezing in my lungs and knew that wasn’t a good sign.

I didn’t know how much time passed, but I thought it’d been a lot. It felt like both an eternity and no time at all.

Cyrus had helped me to the bathroom numerous times, had forced me to drink cold water, no matter how much I fought it. I didn’t have the strength to fight too much.

They used to put things in my food…

Cyrus replaced ice packs and rested cool rags on my head that just made my teeth chatter even more.

The bed moved here and there as he climbed out and back in. At one point, I thought I heard him talking to someone, but I couldn’t be sure if it was real or not.

The more time passed, the tighter my lungs felt. I’d been sick before, but never like this, never where I wondered if I would live or die, and all I could think was…if something happened to me, it would devastate Cyrus. It would kill him, and I cared more about that than what happened to me.

“Open your mouth, baby. I have to take your temperature again.” I shook my head and heard his voice break when he said, “Please, Crow. Please,” which made my heart crack down the middle.

I wasn’t supposed to hurt Cyrus. I was supposed to protect him, love him, show him that he was worth more than he believed.

“Crow…come with me. I need to get you into a cool bath.”

I don’t remember making the decision to move. I didn’t make a decision to do anything, wasn’t sure if any of this was really happening, but one moment I was in bed and the next I was in the bath, hissing and flailing because the water felt too cold against my skin.

Then, I was in bed again.

The three boys across the table were looking at me and giggling quietly. The foster parents didn’t seem to notice. I wanted to take my food and go into the other room or refuse to eat, but I was starving because I’d already gone two days without eating. I fought with myself to hold out, to last longer because then maybe if I did, they would let me go home, they would let me go back to my mountain where things made sense and people didn’t stare at me and call me names. Where they didn’t sneak into my room when I fell asleep and dump water on me, take my things, or try to cut my hair.

“Eat up, Crow. Please. You can’t starve yourself,” the woman said. I think she wanted to be nice, but I just wanted her to leave me alone. Wanted everyone to leave me alone. People were so loud here, and they didn’t follow any of the rules. They weren’t Enlightened and—no! I wasn’t supposed to care about that. I hated him. He’d hurt my mom, had killed her, had taken away the only person who loved me. The person who loved me more than anything else, even if that was wrong and it was supposed to be God and Chosen above all else.

She was gone. I didn’t protect her. I hadn’t shown her I loved her the way she loved me. I had failed her.

My stomach growled.

I was so hungry.

I scooped some stew into my mouth. Once I started, I couldn’t stop, bite after bite after bite, inhaling it, devouring, before picking up my bowl and swallowing the rest.

The kids laughed again.

I threw my bowl at them, hitting one in the head.

“Crow!” the man said, then dragged me to the room they said was mine but that would never be mine. I belonged on the mountain, to the mountain.

I wasn’t in there long before my stomach started to gurgle. I ran to the bathroom and couldn’t leave for hours. The boys had put laxative in my food, but I was in more trouble than they were because I’d cut his temple open with the bowl.

“Don’t trust anyone in the outside, Crow. They will poison your mind and your body, give you things they say will protect you, but really, it’s just for control,” Chosen’s words came back. He’d been right. The boys did exactly what he’d said people would do. Did that mean he was right about everything?

No! He killed her. He took my mom away from me!

He tried to kill me too.

…

They took me to another prison they called home. This wasn’t my home. It would never be my home.

Kids took things from me, hid them, threw them out. Laughed at me. They stole the notes I’d written about Chosen…about Mom… Made fun of me for them. When I fought them, it was my fault. Always my fault.

I just…wanted to go home.

“I want to go home.”

“Baby…you are home. I’m right here with you.”

“Cyrus?” I didn’t know if I was talking or if this was in my head. How was he here with me when I was a child, back in the outside world?

“Crow?” a gentle voice said, soft and loving.

“Mom?”

“Oh God. He’s hallucinating. I don’t know what to do, Melody. Tell me what to do,” Cyrus cried.

“I’m sorry…didn’t want…to hurt…you…”

And then everything went black again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Cyrus

“I’ve got to get him some medication,” I told Melody, trying to tamp down the panic rising inside me.

“You need to get him to a hospital.”

That was definitely something I should do, but I also knew Crow, knew he didn’t trust anyone and how bad his experiences with the outside world had been. I worried what would happen if they tried to take him to the hospital. My mind flashed back to the way he’d nearly broken that guy’s hand, how his wrists had been bruised from the handcuffs. He would hate me.

But he would be alive.

That was the most important thing.

“I have to…I have to try something else first.” He was sleeping again now, though I didn’t know how long that would last. Sometimes it was brief, others it was hours.

The past two days had felt like the longest of my life. I hadn’t gotten any sleep, my mind unable to shut down, my worry for Crow a heavy weight that just kept growing.

I could call Officer Paulson. He’d given me his number, but I worried what Crow would do if the police showed up on his property.

“Can you meet me?”

“It’s dangerous to drive the truck down the mountain now. Not from as high up as he is.”

“I know. I can take the snowmobile.” A plan was forming in my head, one that was dangerous and probably stupid, but I needed to do this. I needed to be there for Crow, to give him what he needed without taking him off the mountain he loved so much.

“You’ll get lost.”

Shit, that was true, but… “Wait. What if you turn your location on for me? I can use my phone to follow directions to get down the mountain to you. Only drive up as far as is safe for you, and then…then I’ll make sure Crow’s is turned on for me too, so I can make my way back up to him.”

“He has a phone?”

I ignored that because it wasn’t important, not right now. “I’m so sorry, Melody. I hate that I’m asking so much of you. I didn’t even spend time with you when you asked, and now I’m… I love him.”

“It’s okay. You can make it up to me. What do you need?”

I gave her a list of medications and asked her to also get a humidifier, pulse oximeter, and a few other things. We would be fucked if he needed antibiotics.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Cyrus?”

No, I absolutely wasn’t, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had to try and help Crow while keeping him home before I did anything else. “No, but it’s what he would want. If…if something happens to me and I don’t make it down, you have to call 911 and find a way for them to get up here and help him. Promise me, Melody.” She didn’t answer for a moment, and I begged, “Please…”

“Yes. I promise, but nothing better happen to you. I’d like to actually be able to hang out with you sometime.”

My heart swelled. Her unwavering friendship, without even really knowing me, meant the world to me. “Thank you…I don’t know what to say. I’ve never known someone like you.” Never had a friend like her. Tranquility wasn’t perfect, but it had brought me Melody…it had given me Crow.

“Thank me by not dying and then buying me lunch when you come back down the mountain.”

“Deal.” I chuckled, feeling anything but light.

We made plans. Melody would go to the store and then find a safe place to meet me. When she was there, she would text, and I’d head down. Cell signal was spotty on the mountain. That was a big concern, but I told myself that wouldn’t happen, that it would be okay because we deserved this. Crow deserved to get better, and I couldn’t lose him. I would die if I lost him.

It felt like an eternity before Melody let me know she was on her way up. Crow was still sleeping. I made sure the location on his phone was on and scribbled a quick note to tell him where I was before kissing his cheek. His skin was still on fire, the fever raging on.

“Please be okay.” My tears landed on his cheek. “Please, please, please. I love you. Be okay. I’ll be right back, and I’m going to make you better, Crow. I promise.” And then I walked out, hoping like hell this wasn’t a terrible mistake.

*

I had those hand-warmer things stuffed into my coat, the sleeves, and along my torso. I was lucky I’d paid attention to where Crow kept the keys for the snowmobile. I checked the gas in it, the way I’d seen him do, and topped it off. I still wasn’t the best at driving this thing, and that was absolutely a concern.

I could get lost out there.

The cell could lose signal.

I could crash and freeze to death before anyone got to me.

There were a hundred things that I refused to believe could go wrong because all that mattered was Crow. I’d failed a lot in my life, failed at almost everything I’d done. I made mistake after mistake. I didn’t care what happened to me, but I would save Crow, one way or another.

The air felt like ice against my face. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but it could pick up again at any time. I climbed onto the machine and checked my phone. I watched it for a good five minutes before I got a text from Melody telling me she was as high up as she could get.

On my way, I replied, then hit the buttons to get directions to her. It wasn’t as if they could tell me which tree to go left or right at, but at least it would help with the general direction. I went to the end of the driveway first. The gate wouldn’t open without plowing the snow, so I would have to go out of the way to travel down to the end of the fence and then back.

It felt like it took an eternity just to get to the end of the fence and then head back again. I was going to do my best to follow where the road was. Melody would have to be on it as well, but I didn’t know if I would lose it because of the snow cover. The area being open and without trees would help.

My hands were shaking as I gripped the throttle and sped up. My heart was beating too hard, too fast, too everything, but I willed myself to push through.

I didn’t drive the machine as fast as Crow did. When I tried to go a little faster again, it felt like I was going out of control. I couldn’t hold the phone the whole time, so every little while I would have to stop and check to make sure I was on the right path. The trees were creating a path for me, so I felt like I was. Every time I saw the blinking circle that showed me where Melody was, I breathed a sigh of relief.

It felt like a lifetime before there was a flash of a red truck in the distance, equipped with chains on the tires, waiting for me. Melody jumped out, threw her arms around me, and I wanted to melt into them, wanted to fall to my knees and thank her for being my friend, for mattering to her.

“Thank God. I’ve been worried sick!” She patted me down, held my face the way a mom would.

“I’m fine. I’m okay. I didn’t have any issues. I just need to get the stuff and get back to Crow.”

“Yeah, of course.” She held a bag out to me with her gloved hands. I stuffed it into the empty backpack I’d brought. “I called my cousin. He’s a doctor. We’re close enough that I felt safe telling him I had a friend who is in trouble. I explained the symptoms, and he wrote me a prescription for antibiotics. I nearly had to flash my boobs at the pharmacist to get him to put a rush on them.”

Oh God. She was amazing. She’d gotten me antibiotics. “You’re incredible! I don’t know what to say.”

“Just get home safe to your man and make sure he gets better. That’s the most important thing.”

I hugged her, just needing to be close to her. “Thank you. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“No worries, but I don’t feel comfortable with you riding back up there…I should try to drive you or something.”

“The snowmobile is made for this. It’s much safer than the truck. I can’t put you in danger like that, Melody. You’ve already done too much for me, and nothing is stopping me from going back up that mountain and getting to Crow.”

“You really love him?” she asked, her voice louder so I could hear her over the wind.

“More than anything,” I admitted before hugging her again.

“What if he won’t take the medicine?”

“He’s going to take it.” Or I would die trying.

And hopefully, he wasn’t allergic to anything I gave him.

Snow started falling again, which sucked. It would make my drive up even harder. It was much more difficult to see with snow falling down around you.

“I have to go.”

“Okay,” she said. “Be safe and let me know when you’re back home.”

I nodded, pulled up directions to Crow, and drove away.

It was as if someone had hit a button and opened up the sky. The snow fell harder and harder, my visibility getting worse, the goggles collecting moisture. Everything in front of me was just fog and white, my stomach twisting, chest aching as I hoped and prayed that if there really was anyone out there, they would make sure I got to Crow. I just needed to get to Crow.

It felt like I’d been traveling up the mountain for a whole day, which clearly wasn’t possible. I stopped to check my phone again, the blinking circle that was home still there but looking too far for comfort.

I got going again, my breathing becoming more difficult, but I was pretty sure that was just because of the fear. I breathed out a sigh of relief when I reached the fence, then followed it until it ended, and I turned toward home again.

My head hurt from my eyes squinting while I tried to see. By the time I noticed the thick, brown barrier in front of me, it was too late. I must have veered off path somehow and hadn’t realized. I didn’t have time to react before the snowmobile rammed into the tree and I went flying.

I’m so sorry, Crow.

My shoulder slammed into a tree, pain shooting through it. All I could think at first was to be thankful it wasn’t my head, or that I hadn’t hurt one of my legs because there was a good chance I was going to have to walk.

I shoved to my feet, stumbling slightly. My head did ring some, but I didn’t have time to think about that right now. The backpack had flown off me, so I looked around, finding it about ten feet away, and grabbed that first. I hooked it onto my right shoulder, but my left was already screaming at me. Any time I tried to move, it felt like someone was trying to rip my arm off.

Ignore it. You have to ignore it and get to Crow.

I patted my pocket, unzipped it, thankful I’d closed the phone inside. Home still blinked for me, calling my name. The house, yes—I felt more at ease in Crow’s cabin than I ever had anywhere else—but even more than that, it was because of the man inside. He was my home, and I needed to get to him.

I rushed over to the snowmobile. It had turned off when I’d been thrown off, the emergency key Crow had shown me having done its job. I climbed on, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, the cold, and tried to restart it.

Nothing.

I tried a second time and a third. Nothing happened. “Fuck!” I shouted. Why couldn’t I stop fucking up?

Shoving off the machine again, I pulled the phone out and started to walk—trying not to focus on the fact that I’d just wrecked Crow’s snowmobile, or anything that would take up space in my head while I needed to focus on getting to him.

My teeth chattered, legs started to feel heavier and heavier. It felt like my insides were frozen, like my limbs were blocks of ice. Every time I fell, I fought to get to my feet again. Crow, Crow, Crow. I said his name over and over in my head, the only thing that kept me going.

My pulse felt like it was slowing, my heart too, my legs like concrete, unable to move. I fell, face landing in the snow.

Get up, get up, get up.

Crow’s mouth on mine, his hands on my skin, the way he looked at me, eyes filled with words he didn’t know how to say.

Get up, get up, get up.

Being on my knees for him, his cock in my mouth, anchoring me. His dick inside me, the greatest salvation I’ve ever known.

Get up, get up, get up.

Crow bathing me, cooking for me.

His rough voice saying one simple word: need.

He needed me.

I needed him.

Which meant I needed to get the fuck up.

I pushed onto my knees.

I’m coming, Crow.

I looked ahead, and in the distance I saw a light, saw home.

I checked the phone, but it had gone black. I tried to open the screen, but nothing popped up. Maybe snow had gotten inside. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe I was dead. I didn’t know, but I was going toward that light, hoping like hell it was really there.

I pushed harder than I ever had in my life, stumbling but still going as I rushed toward what I hoped was home.

Crow.

Home.

So close. You’re almost there. Keep going.

I didn’t know how it happened—if somehow I blocked it out, if it was a fucking miracle or what—but one moment I was forcing myself to walk, and the next the porch stairs were in front of me.

Tears froze against my face as I fell onto the wood.

The pain in my shoulder was gone, but I knew that was only temporary, that it would be back. For now, as I crawled toward the door, I felt nothing.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Crow

“Crow…take this…I need you to take this for me.” Cyrus’s voice was soft, broken-sounding as he put something to my lips.

I shook my head.

“Please, Crow…do it for me. I need you to do this for me.”

My eyes fluttered open. Cyrus’s face was flushed, hair a mess, eyes ringed red. He…didn’t look good.

What’s wrong? What happened?

When he didn’t answer, I realized I hadn’t spoken the words.

“Don’t die. I’m scared you’re going to die on me. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

I wouldn’t do that to him, couldn’t. I would do anything in my power to stay here for him, to be here with him. I’d always thought I would live my life alone, but now I had him, and the thought of ever being without him made me feel emptier and lonelier than I’d ever thought possible.

I opened my mouth, and he put two pills on my tongue.

Don’t do it! Don’t take them! You can’t trust him—no!

This is Cyrus. He’s not Chosen. He’s not the children who picked on me. I can trust him.

“That’s it. Here, drink this, baby. Swallow them with this for me.” Cyrus put a straw to my lips, and I swallowed the water. I had done that before, hadn’t I? Taken something he had given me, drinks he’d made me, when I hadn’t done that since I left foster care.

He’s not them.

He is…everything.

The pills went down.

I coughed, chest hurting, lungs trying to squeeze the breath out of me.

“Here. Take this too. I need you to take one more.”

He gave me that one, and I took it as well.

“I got you something to help clear your lungs too.”

Got me? How could he have gotten me anything?

“I’m going to put more ice packs on you, okay?”

I didn’t know if I answered before my world went black again.

*

The next time he woke me, the scent of menthol clung to the air, filled my nose every time I breathed in. My chest felt like there was something sticky on it, and I was pretty sure it was beneath my nose too.

“I need you to take some more medication for me,” Cyrus pleaded.

The instinct was there again to say no, but…this was Cyrus. He would never hurt me. I could trust him. And if I wanted to get better for him, I needed to take them.

I opened my mouth. He placed them on my tongue and gave me another drink.

Thank you. No one has ever taken care of me before. No one has ever done this.

“Do you need to pee? We’ve just been doing it right here. I can get the container.”

I shook my head. He’d had to help me piss? Shame washed over me. I was supposed to take care of him, not the other way around…but then, that didn’t feel right. It was like some archaic law, something Chosen would have said. Wasn’t the point of loving someone that you took care of each other? That you gave each other what you needed?

“Okay…your fever is going down. I’ve alternated Tylenol and Advil, two doses of each, plus the antibiotic.”

I only remembered half of them. And antibiotics? Where had he gotten those?

“Go back to sleep, Crow. Rest will help you feel better. I’m right here. You’re going to be okay.”

I believed it because Cyrus had said it. I let the darkness take me again.

*

My bladder screamed at me to wake up. The room still smelled like menthol. The sticky stuff was still on my chest. I had no clue how much time had passed but thought it was more than I likely realized.

There was a body beside me in bed. Cyrus.

He had stayed with me, taken care of me, had—

I frowned. How had he gotten the medicine? Had he had some and I hadn’t known?

It was almost dawn. I didn’t need a clock to tell me the time, not when my head was clearer.

My legs were weak, almost giving out on me when I tried to stand. It was a slow trip to the bathroom. How long had I been sick?

I’d thought I was going to die…

I sat down to piss, then had to work up the energy to stand. The trip back to the bed was even slower. I’d been sick before in my life, but nothing like what I’d just experienced. I fell back onto the mattress, and it felt like I’d spent a day hiking rather than just going to the bathroom.

I reached for Cyrus, needing to touch him, to know he was really there. That I was still alive and with him.

My fingers brushed over something tied around his shoulder.

I frowned into the soft, orange glow beginning to sneak into the room, before sleep took me again.

*

“Hey,” Cyrus said softly as my eyes began to flutter open. “I made some soup. Do you think you can drink some of the broth?”

I swiped at my eyes, trying to clear my vision, my head, something. My whole body didn’t ache the way it had before. My chest wasn’t as tight, and I wasn’t cold.

When he was finally clear to me, not blurred around the edges, the first thing I noticed was the sling around his arm, and then the bruise beneath his eye. My heart clenched, my jaw tightened. Someone had…who the fuck had hurt him?

“How?” I bit out before coughs racked my body again, throat and chest burning.

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m okay. Settle down. The last thing you need is to work yourself up.” Cyrus held a cup out to me again, and I took long pulls, swallowing down the cold water, which helped soothe my scratchy throat.

I opened my mouth, but for the first time, Cyrus said, “Don’t talk yet. I don’t want you to get agitated.”

I rolled my eyes, though I knew he was right.

“You were so sick, Crow. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if you were even getting enough air. There was no medication or way to check your oxygen saturation… I called Melody. She got the things I needed, then drove up as far as she could get. I took the snowmobile and met her.”

He took… He could have gotten hurt. He did get hurt. What if he’d gotten lost? He would have frozen to death, and it would have been my fault. “No. Don’t…” Fuck. The one time I wanted to speak, and I couldn’t. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I had to. If I didn’t go, you could have died, Crow.”

“Not. Worth. Your. Life.”

“It is to me!” he shouted, surprising me, then sighed. “I don’t want to fight. I did what I had to do, and I’m okay. Melody turned on her location so I could find her. I did the same to find my way back to you. And it worked. I was finally able to break your fever. The humidifier helped you breathe better. Your oxygen wasn’t bad, but you sounded terrible. I was… I was so scared. I can’t lose you.” He dropped his chin to his chest.

Guilt flooded me, making my skin tighten worse than any sickness could. “Won’t.”

“You can’t promise me that.”

“Hurt.” I cupped his face, brushed my thumb beneath his eye.

“I wrecked your snowmobile. I’m so sorry. I had to leave it. I didn’t know what else to do. I know those are expensive. I’ll do my best to pay you back, but—”

“Shh.” How could he think I would care about that? I didn’t care about anything but him.

“Risked…your life…for me.”

He looked up, nuzzled his cheek into my palm the way he so often did. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Crow. I have nothing without you. I am nothing without you.”

I shook my head. “No. You’re everything.” I closed my eyes, breathed, and wished I could smell him rather than the menthol in the air. “I have nothing without you… I am nothing without you,” I returned the words Cyrus had just given me.

He climbed into bed with me, and my arms immediately twined around him. “I was so scared, Crow.”

“Sorry.”

“We can’t do this again. We have to have medicine up here. You have to take it. You need to see a doctor when the snow lets up.”

My body froze against him.

“We have to take care of ourselves if we’re going to be up this mountain for months at a time…for each other.”

I sighed, touched the bruise on his face that I now knew was from the goggles he wore on the machine. He’d been through so much…for me. If he hadn’t been here, I would have died. “You saved me.”

His chin wobbled, eyes pooling. It took me a moment to realize mine were doing the same, that I was close to crying because this man loved me and risked his life for me.

“That’s because I love you.” Cyrus sat up, reached to the nightstand, where I noticed a bowl. “I plan to keep taking care of you until you’re well. Anytime you need me, for the rest of my life, I’ll take care of you.” He lifted the spoon from the bowl, broth from his soup there.

It went against all my instincts, everything about who I was, to allow someone to feed me, to give me food they made. To let myself depend on someone that much and to trust them, but this wasn’t just anyone. He was my world, and there was nothing I wouldn’t give him.

I opened my mouth…and let him feed me.

One spoonful after another after another, Cyrus fed me. And when I was done, I took medicine from his hand and a drink from the cup he had provided.

He curled into me, my arm around him, holding him, foreheads close as we lay on our sides, looking at each other.

“They put things in my food. Kids. In foster care.”

Cyrus’s face softened, eyes sad and loving. “Oh, Crow. I’m so sorry. I would never—”

“I know,” I cut him off, knowing I needed to get this out, that he deserved more. “Chosen…he sedated us sometimes. He did the day he…” The day he killed her. “He gave us other things too, as punishment—to make us sick or vomit. When…with Hillary, I couldn’t…but the pills he gave me made me get hard.”

“Why…why would he do that?”

Who knew. There were a million possibilities. He was evil. The power went to his head. None of that mattered, though, because he was gone, locked away, and now I had Cyrus.

“So tired,” was all I managed to say.

“Go to sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

I smiled, believing him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Cyrus

It took almost two weeks for Crow to get better. Every day he got more and more energy. I fretted over him the whole time, and surprisingly, he let me. I’d done all the cooking, forcing him to try and eat to regain his strength. I kept the humidifier going, continued giving him meds as needed, sponge-bathed him until he had the energy to sit in the tub, and then I bathed him there too.

I knew how hard it was for Crow to depend on anyone, to feel like he wasn’t completely self-sufficient, for him to trust another person so completely, and the fact that he did with me… I didn’t have the words to explain what that meant for me, how it made me feel.

I worried that whatever he had, I would end up getting it too, but so far, that hadn’t been the case. But I knew if I did, Crow would take care of me the way I’d done with him.

I rolled over in bed to snuggle close to him. Crow was lying on his side, eyes open, watching me.

“What?” I asked. I couldn’t help smiling. Being the object of his interest filled me with joy.

“Your shoulder?” He cocked a brow.

“It feels much better.” I’d taken the sling off two days ago and had started using my arm just a bit. That could have gone worse than it had too. Crow and I had been very lucky.

“I want to feed you today,” he said.

“Okay.” The seriousness of his tone told me this was extremely important to him.

“I want to be to you what you’ve been to me the past few weeks.”

A wave of gooseflesh ran down my body. “We can do that.”

“Come.” Crow got out of bed and stood. He was naked, no morning wood, or it had already gone down. I loved it when he was hard, of course, but I also loved seeing him like this, his dick flaccid, hanging between his legs. Sometimes it felt more intimate than anything else.

He held his hand out for me, and I took it, let Crow lead me to the bathroom. He started the shower, signaling for me to go inside.

Well, it wasn’t as if I was going to argue with him.

I stepped in, followed by Crow, who grabbed the soap and immediately started washing me. I savored the feel of his larger hands against my body. Crow touching me, loving me was always my favorite place to be.

My dick hardened as he soaped up my cock and balls, then reached around, running the washcloth between my ass cheeks. I waited for him to get me off, to touch me again and again until I painted the walls with my cum, but instead, he just rinsed me off and then started in on my hair.

“Crow,” I begged.

“Be good,” he ordered, and damn if that didn’t make me flush with heat.

He was very good, much better than I expected, as he continued to pamper me. He didn’t let me wash him, even when I pouted and begged.

After our shower, Crow brought me jeans and a sweatshirt, which made me frown. “I don’t know if you should go outside yet. I don’t want—”

“I’m fine,” he cut me off.

“Crow—”

“I want to show you something, little lamb. We won’t be outside for long.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure I liked it, but then when he smiled, my heart ran like crazy. “What?”

“You… I…have never been loved like this. I know my mom did, but I didn’t feel it daily. Not the way I do with you.”

Oh…oh. “Jesus, Crow. I’ll love you like this every day for the rest of your life.”

The corners of his mouth turned down, eyes softening in a way that almost looked sad. “You deserve more, but you’re mine, so I’ll keep you as long as you let me.”

Keep me. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it was wrong or unhealthy, but I wanted to be kept by Crow. I always wanted to be his.

“Always.”

He nodded, and we got dressed. I sat on my stool while Crow brought me water and my pills, then cooked breakfast. When the bacon and eggs were done, he made one large plate, then took it and a glass of orange juice to the couch.

This was…different. Ever since we’d made my chair and stool, we always ate at the table or the bar. But I followed because I would follow him anywhere.

“Kneel for me, little lamb.” Crow signaled to the floor, his voice deeper than usual.

I shook as I knelt between his thighs the way I usually did when I kept his cock in my mouth. Crow used his fingers to break off a piece of bacon, and then…then he held it out for me.

“You fed me…now I will feed you.”

My stomach got light and fluttery, my chest so full, I worried it would rip apart. This wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but I wanted it, wanted this gentle care Crow offered so easily.

I opened my mouth, and he placed the bite of bacon inside.

Crow watched me chew with fire in his eyes, with possessiveness that maybe should have scared me but didn’t. When I finished, he scooped eggs onto the spoon, then fed those to me too.

“You like this,” he noted.

“I do.”

“Me too,” Crow added.

He fed me a bite of each again before taking one for himself, then back and forth until the food was gone. The entire time, there was a calmness in me, a peacefulness, no, a tranquility I’d never known but wanted to hold on to. My whole life, I’d felt this storm inside me—life with my mom, my own drug addiction. I’d never known what it was like to feel tranquil until him.

“Come,” Crow told me after rinsing the dishes.

We went to the hooks by the door where we kept the winter gear, bundled up and tugged on boots, then went outside. Like always, the frosty air felt like it bit across any bare skin as we made our way to the shop.

“The plants are doing well,” I told Crow after he unlocked the door and we slipped inside. “I made sure to take care of those too.”

“I know,” he said without looking at me. “I trust you.”

My breath hitched when I realized he was leading me to the back, toward the locked room where he would disappear for hours at a time. My stomach was in knots. This had to be something good. I knew that because I knew Crow, but so many times in my life, things had gone wrong, and this felt so big, I worried there was no way it would all work out.

Crow unlocked the door, then slowly stepped aside. My feet must have moved, only I didn’t realize it. One moment I was outside the room, the next I was inside, and…it was me. Right in front of me. A large canvas rested on an easel, with the most beautiful painting I had ever seen.

I was asleep in Crow’s bed, lying on my stomach, with my head to the side. My face was relaxed, as if I’d never seen a bad day in my life. Every freckle on my face seemed to match the exact spot where I saw them in the mirror every day.

My lips were slightly parted, and if I listened closely, I could swear I heard my breath—not from the real me standing there, but from the one Crow had created.

My back bowed beautifully, an indent above my ass, another freckle on my right cheek. The hairs on my legs looked soft, like I could reach out and feel them brush against my skin. I was…beautiful. I had never seen myself as a beautiful man. I knew there must be something attractive about me because men wanted to fuck me, but when I looked at myself through Crow’s eyes, I saw it, the beauty of me.

My eyes went from one painting to another and another. One of me laughing, one of me in snow gear. On the snowmobile. Me kneeling, but Crow not there with me. Another of me in the shower, the first night I stayed here; another curled on his couch with ice on my ankle. There had to be thirty paintings, all of me.

I kept going, studying them all, feeling the love Crow had poured into each and every piece of art.

“I’ve been…obsessed with you from the start,” Crow said as I knelt in front of the one of me from when I’d sprained my ankle.

“This is what you do? When you come out here? Paint me?”

“I painted other things before I met you…nothing but you since.”

My heart… I couldn’t put into words what it did. The truth was, I didn’t have a heart anymore. Not one that belonged to me. I had given mine to Crow. It was his, in his possession, and always would be.

“Do I really look like this? Am I really this beautiful to you?”

I heard Crow move behind me, until he was right next to me. “I keep painting because they never turn out as beautiful as you are.”

I didn’t know what was happening to me. One moment I was fine, the next tears spilled down my cheeks, loud sobs pulling from my throat.

Crow sat beside me, pulled me into his arms, tugged me to his lap and held me, hands touching me everywhere, like he was trying to make sure I was okay.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought—”

“You didn’t hurt me. You…you’re healing me.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around it, how Crow could see all this beauty inside me, but I did believe he was the most beautiful person I’d ever known…so if he saw it there, I had no choice but to believe it.

He kissed my tears away, taking them on his tongue, making them a part of him.

I dropped my head on his shoulder—and noticed something against the wall on the far side of the room. Hidden between all the canvases of me was another one…something else.

Crow didn’t stop me as I climbed off his lap, but he didn’t move either, continued to stay there with his back to me as I made my way through the maze of art. I felt the heaviness in the air, the stillness that could only come from being in a room with Crow. When he wanted, he could be completely silent, not making a sound, just like the most vicious predators.

But Crow was no predator. He was more human than most people could hope to be.

There was no doubt in my mind he knew what I saw. If he didn’t, he would turn around, would watch me, would say something. In this situation, his silence was permission. I knew Crow well enough to understand that.

My hands shook as I pulled the painting out, holding in the shocked sound that tried to slip free.

It was The Enlightened. All of them. Standing in a group like one big, happy family, with Crow’s father right in the middle.

There was a woman to his left. His arm was slung around her shoulder. She had Crow’s same dark eyes, the same knowledge in them that said they’d seen a lot, been through a lot, lifetimes’ worth, like the two of them were old souls and had walked the earth for hundreds of years.

Crow stood in front of her and his father, his dad’s hand on one shoulder, his mom’s on the other.

They all smiled and looked happy despite the horrors I knew happened here…knew there were even worse things I didn’t know about. You would never guess that. Never guess the pain the man had caused, but most monsters were like that. They made you believe they cared, that they wanted what was best for you, made you believe they were the only answer, the only ones who could help you, when really, they were the ones who would break you. Monsters hid in plain sight, slowly chipping away at your choices, at your possibilities, and that was what the monster in his painting had done to every single one of them.

Some had escaped. Crow had in some ways, but not others, and his mom had been a casualty of Chosen’s cruelty. I wouldn’t call him Crow’s dad—not anymore.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Crow said, beside my ear. I jumped, not having heard him move. “He got into your head…made us think we were happy, that we were doing good work, that this was our destiny and we should be thankful for it. Sometimes he’s still in my head.”

“That’s not your fault.” I turned to look at him.

“Is it not? I keep this. Sometimes I want things to be how they were.”

“That’s because it was all you knew, Crow. And then you were thrust into a world you didn’t understand. You want to go back because you had your mom. There are times I wish I could go back too. My mom was in pain every day. She hated herself. She would pass out in her own vomit. But I would go back because I had her. Being alive is so complicated. Feelings are complicated. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”

And I guessed that meant I wasn’t a bad person either.

“She was going to escape with me.” He looked at the painting, eyes hitched on his mom. “I didn’t learn about that until she was dead, and for a while, I was angry with her. He’d killed her because she wanted more for herself, and I was angry with her for that.” The self-hate in his voice ripped my heart out, shredded it into a million pieces.

My poor, wounded, bighearted Crow. He took the weight of everything that had happened—to The Enlightened, and even to me—and carried it on his shoulders. Made it his fault. For the rest of my life, I would do everything in my power to ease his struggle.

“You were a child—one who’d been brainwashed. You lost everything that night, then felt abandoned by everyone else leaving you. This mountain is the only real home you’ve ever known. You belong here, Crow. Even I see that.” He felt like he was a part of it, like he had roots stronger than any of the trees, holding him here. Like Tranquility Mountain lived off Crow’s heartbeat, and him off the mountain’s. “You were scared and alone. You love her. You closed yourself off to all the teachings engrained in you and became the best man I’ve ever known.”

He leaned in, dropped his forehead to mine, then rubbed his scratchy beard against my face. “Thank you for giving yourself to me.”

“Thank you for wanting me.” Because no one ever had, but I thought that was because I’d always belonged to Crow, even before I knew him. I reached toward the painting, almost brushed my finger against his mom’s image. “She was beautiful.”

“Yes, she was.”

We were quiet for a moment, looking down at Crow’s past, at the pain and joy and so many conflicting emotions.

“You should paint her…only her. We can hang her up in the house.”

“I’ve never allowed myself to paint her again, not after this. Maybe I can now.”

My heart leaped with joy. I wanted that for him, so very much.

He took the painting out of my hand and set it down, his pupils growing. “Today, I want to paint you.”

My skin crackled with need. “Yes.” I wanted to do that, wanted to pose for Crow. Wanted to be his inspiration, always.

He nodded, then began to pick up supplies—a canvas, a case, an easel. I frowned as I watched him, but then he turned to me and simply said, “Come.”

I went.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Crow

I wanted to paint Cyrus from life rather than memory, and I wanted to paint him in my bed, in our bed.

He helped me carry the supplies into the house. We set them down, took off the coats, gloves, and other winter wear, then headed to our room.

It had been hard to share my art with him, to give him that piece of me.

I wanted Cyrus, my sun, my little lamb, to see all of me.

“Take off your clothes. Show yourself to me. Let me see what’s mine.”

“Jesus.” Cyrus visibly trembled, his voice shaking on that one word.

You brought me food.

You took care of me.

You risked your life for me.

You give yourself to me.

You love me.

And he deserved to know all of me.

Cyrus did as I said, his beautiful, flawless skin on display for me. He’d gained a little weight since moving to the mountain, his bones not quite as prominent, a little more softness to him that I loved exploring with my eyes, my hands, my tongue.

“Where do you want me?” Cyrus asked.

“Our bed,” I replied, voice rough and feeling strangely unused even though I’d been talking to him. An ear-to-ear smile spread on his face, and it felt like it crossed the distance between us and landed in my chest.

I cocked my head, and Cyrus answered my silent question, “I like it when you call it ours.”

“I like it too.”

He lay down while I arranged the easel and laid everything out. Once I was finished, I went to my Cyrus, brushed my fingers down his shoulder and arm. Goose bumps followed in their wake. “I’m going to paint these too. I love seeing how much I affect you.”

“It feels like no one has ever touched me before you.”

I growled in response, knowing what he was saying, that none of that had been real, none of that he’d ever really felt, because none of the other men had been me. “They haven’t. Not the real you.”

I positioned him the way I wanted him—on his back, arm up and over his head, which tilted down just slightly. One leg bent to the side, the other straight, blankets messy and slept in around him.

I didn’t need him to stay like this. How many times had I painted him from memory already? Every freckle, every muscle, every crease and plane of his body. But there was something incredibly erotic about seeing him like this, knowing he was lying there for me and me alone, that he would let me do with him as I pleased.

I ran my fingers through his hair, brushed my thumbs over his nipples, watched his skin pebble in response again, before I went to my easel and got to work.

Cyrus’s eyes held fast to me, like there was some kind of magnetic pull that wouldn’t let him look away. My need for him rumbled inside me, grew and begged for me to go to him, take him, claim him over and over and over again even though I knew he was mine. It was an animalistic urge, a necessity that would never go away.

When the snow melted, I didn’t know how I would let him out of my sight. While I knew he belonged here with me, I understood that he was different too, that he did things in the outside world that I didn’t, and I would have to learn how to be away from him.

“You growled. Why did you growl?” he asked, a smirk on his lips as though he had a glimpse into my head and liked what he saw.

I just shook my head, words trapped inside me again, the way they likely would always be sometimes…and I painted. For hours. Cyrus fell asleep, while I tried to perfect what was on canvas the way the man in our bed was perfect to me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it right, would never be able to get it right, but I would continue to try until I wasn’t physically able anymore.

He moved around in bed, curled into a little ball the way he often did, but the exact image of him I tried to create was still seared into my mind.

I wanted this to be perfect, as perfect as I could make it, wanted to show him how I felt, even though that was impossible. There weren’t actions or words strong enough for that.

So I just kept painting, putting all I had into every swipe of the brush. Everything except me and the canvas became blurred edges and fuzzy white noise around me, until a soft but sharp intake of breath pulled me out of the world I’d slipped into.

I looked over to Cyrus, who was now sitting up in bed, looking at me, the sort of awe in his eyes I never thought could be directed at me, never thought I would deserve directed at me.

“Crow, it’s…beautiful.”

His cheeks were pink from sleep, his hair mussed, every inch of his gorgeous body on display for me. I wanted to kiss each of my freckles, because yes, they felt like they were mine. Wanted to taste every inch of his body, wanted to inhale his scent, wanted to fuck him so hard, he would never ever doubt that he belonged to me and I to him.

The blurred edges shifted, no longer me and the painting, but me and Cyrus, my mind and body hyper-fixated on him. The world could end, and I wouldn’t care as long as the two of us were still standing.

My dick throbbed, the need inside me sizzling with weeks, or hell, a lifetime of pent-up desire. I needed inside him more than I needed my next breath. I would surrender everything to him, give him anything as we lost ourselves in each other.

The look in his eyes changed, heat flaring there. The flushed glow of his skin spread through his cheeks and down the rest of his body.

“Yes. Take me, Crow. Remind me I’m yours.” Cyrus turned onto his stomach, pressing his ass up in the air.

The rumble started deep in my chest, then fell from my lips in a soft grumble that increased in intensity. The paintbrush fell to the floor, the mess not mattering as I ripped off my clothes, dick hard and leaking, and stalked toward him on the bed. I felt blind with lust, like it wasn’t my heart or my lungs that kept me alive, but my need for him.

My lips pressed to his nape, Cyrus’s body bowing toward me. Every knot of his spine got the attention of my lips, every freckle on his shoulders was touched by my hands as I started my journey of exploration of every plane of his body, every single inch of his skin.

“Crow,” he said needily, amping up my need for him.

His lower back dipped when I got to his waist, and I licked the divot there, blood rushing through my ears, cock begging to mount him from behind and slam home right now. To mark the inside of his body with my cum the way I would never tire of doing.

Cyrus spread his legs, ass cheeks opening, his tight, pink hole begging for me.

“Please, Crow. I want your tongue.”

I snarled as I took in his position, the way he was giving himself to me, offering me what we both knew was already mine, pink balls full and hanging prettily between his legs.

I snarled again because words felt too hard right then, my head filled with nothing but Cyrus and my longing for him. I bit into his ass cheek, and he cried out my name, pleas for more flowing from his mouth like a waterfall. I did it again on the other side, then sucked him there, pulling the blood to the surface and leaving my dark-red mark behind. I ran my nose along his crease, the soft scent of soap from our shower this morning still there, blended with his natural musk. I swiped at him with my tongue, Cyrus’s body nearly convulsing.

“Yes, Crow. Yes. Please.”

Hands on each of his cheeks, I kept him open and took what I wanted—his hole with my tongue. I loved eating him out, loved the raw need of it, loved pushing my tongue past his rim and fucking him with it to help get him ready for my cock.

Cyrus pushed back against my face, more of the waterfall pleas and wants spilling from him. I sucked his balls, then went back to his hole, feasting on this perfect, tight ring he offered me so freely.

Reaching between his legs, I stroked his cock, slick with the precum he leaked. His body shook, cock swelling like he was about to unleash, so I pulled back, wanting to draw this out. I wanted to fuck him all day, to never stop fucking him.

“Make me come, baby. Please, I need it.”

“No,” I managed to get out. I wasn’t ready yet, wanted to keep making him chase his bliss but not give it to him until I decided it was time.

I went at his ass again, flicking it with my tongue, softening it for my cock, stroking his erection and bringing him right to that edge before pulling off, again and again and again.

Cyrus fell to the bed, stomach against the mattress, arms and legs seemingly trembling with too much pleasure to hold him up.

I didn’t stop, devouring him with my tongue, pushing my finger inside him. Biting and sucking. Journeying up his back again to give him my marks there too, on his neck, his shoulder. Cyrus’s hands fisted in the pillow, needy pleas filling the air.

I fumbled getting the lube from the nightstand, slicked my fingers, and pushed two inside his body. “My hole.”

He pushed back against me. “Yes. Yours. Always yours.”

His ass hugged my fingers, stretching and opening for me, getting prepared to take my cock. We were made for this, our bodies made to fit together in this most primal way.

I pushed a third inside him, stretching his pretty, pink rim, then flicking it again with my tongue, pressing it around my fingers so I could taste him. I wanted to consume him, to let him consume me, until we were one.

My dick begged, throbbed and pulsed to be inside him. Pushing onto my knees, I pumped lube into my hand and slicked my cock. Cyrus was still on his belly, head to the side, and… Look at me, little lamb. I need to see your eyes when I take you.

That was the ultimate possession, to see him, to look at him while we came together in this way. But more than possession, I wanted him to see how I felt, to know that there was nothing I wouldn’t give him, that he deserved more than he’d ever had, and I was the man who would give it to him.

“Turn,” I said gently.

“Crow?” He looked at me over his shoulder.

“I need… I need to see you.” Because this wasn’t just for him. This was for me as well. One of the last steps I needed to take, one more thing I would own, take it back from all the things that happened to me in the past.

“Yes. God yes. I need that too.”

My heart broke, knowing this was something he craved that I’d yet to give him. “I’m sorry.”

Cyrus rolled to his back, looking up at me with the naked love he gave me so freely. “No. Don’t be. I didn’t want it until you were ready.”

I nodded, then leaned down and took his mouth. Everything had felt fast and frenzied until now, but the kiss slowed things down—the initial taste of him, his tongue in my mouth, mine in his. The way our lips played together, our tongues telling each other secrets that would only belong to us.

I pushed Cyrus’s legs open more, hooked them with my arms. He reached for me, holding the base of my cock as he pressed the crown to his rim. Our gazes held fast, firm. The world could fall apart around us, and we wouldn’t be able to look away from each other. I slowly, so slowly, pressed inside him.

A drop of moisture fell to his face, a stray tear of mine sneaking out. Crying wasn’t something I’d done much of, and never because something was so beautiful, so perfect.

His mouth parted, a slight exhale as I was buried to the hilt. His body squeezed me, molded to me, but I didn’t move, just stayed inside him, looking down at this man who’d changed my world.

“You are my sun too. My life was darkness until you gave me your light.”

“Crow.” His voice broke on my name, and he reached for me, tangled his hand in my hair, resting it on the back of my head.

“I…I love you,” I told him, then kissed his tearstained lips. I pulled my hips back, then thrust into him again.

We alternated between kissing and fucking and looking at each other. When he smiled, I couldn’t help but taste it, but I just wanted to see him, wanted to watch the pleasure slide across his face, see the love in his eyes as he gave himself to me.

Every time I thought one of us would come, I slowed again, dragging this out so he hopefully never had to leave this bed.

His body was so hot, so tight and soft as his insides dragged along my cock with each slow plunge inside him. It was perfect. It was everything, but somehow still not enough. I flipped us, holding on to Cyrus so I stayed inside him until I was on my back and he straddled me.

I’d never done it like this before, never given control to anyone to ride me, but I wanted to share that with Cyrus. Wanted him to know how much I trusted him.

“Mine,” he said, using the word I associated so often with him. Cyrus knew what this was, knew that while I’d told him before that I belonged to him too, that now I was giving myself completely, willingly, needed to be his.

He didn’t take his gaze away from me. He was so beautiful, every inch of his skin. I pressed my finger to the bruise my mouth had left on his neck, and he gasped, arched closer and rode me harder. His hot, tight body rose and lowered on me, enveloped me, as Cyrus took what he needed from me—this time, me being the one to give to him.

His pretty cock was long and hard between us. I stroked it, watched him move, this moment breathing more life into my body than I’d ever had before him.

“Fuck me. I need you to fuck me hard, Crow.”

I growled, hand on the back of his head and tugging him down to my mouth. I pushed my tongue inside while I fucked up and into him. I tasted his words, tasted his love as we lost ourselves to the punishing strokes of my body plunging into his. My balls were tight, full, body thrumming with need. I pulled his head back, saw the strained tendons in his neck, knew he was trying to make this last as much as I was.

Cyrus’s eyes were screwed shut, and no, that wouldn’t do. “Look at me, little lamb. Look me in the eyes while you come on my cock and take what’s yours.”

His body shuddered, his eyes opened, his nails digging into my pecs while he bounced on me, rode me hard, fell apart with my name on his tongue as his ass spasmed around me, cock twitching and load spurting on his stomach and mine.

I let loose, growled out loud, my own release following right behind his as I filled his body with my cum.

Tugging him down, we kissed and kissed and kissed until my dick softened and fell out of him. I laid him beside me, pushed his sweaty hair from his forehead.

“Say it again,” Cyrus asked.

“I love you.”

He smiled, replied, “I love you too,” then drifted off to sleep.

I watched him, unable to rest, unable to look away.

I love you.

You’re mine.

And I wanted to share her with him, wanted her memory to go on the way Cyrus let his mom live on in him. I wanted to take that last step, to give myself to him completely.

Quietly, I sneaked from the bed, went to the safe, and unlocked it. I held the journal to my chest, remembering her smile, acknowledging what she gave up for me, trying to help me break free.

Cyrus was just stirring as I entered the room again. “Crow?”

I sat beside him and handed him the book.

“What is this?”

“My mom…it’s how I knew what happened. I finished it, wrote what happened to her and some of what happened to me. It…will hurt, but if you want…I want to share that with you.”

“Yes. Thank you. I…”

“Shh.” I kissed his lips. “Stay. I can’t…” I couldn’t watch.

“Okay.” He nodded.

I grabbed clothes and slipped from the room.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Cyrus

Crow,

I don’t know how to start this letter. If you’re reading it, that means I’m not around to tell you everything myself, and the thought of that is too devastating to comprehend. You are my dream come true. If there is anything I want you to take from all this, it’s that. I have never in my life wanted something more than I wanted you. I have never loved someone more than I love you. The most important thing in the world for me is that you get out of this place, out of this cult, because that’s exactly what The Enlightened is. A cult. I want you to have the happy, healthy life you were meant to have, my sweet boy. If that happens, everything I go through will be worth it.

When I got this journal, I left the first few pages blank for a reason. I wanted to tell the story about The Enlightened, about Chosen and all my experiences, but I also wanted to set aside something special for you. It’s impossible to tell you everything, to make you understand, but I have to try.

You know nothing about my life before Chosen, in part because at first, I didn’t think it mattered. My past, before Chosen told me about my purpose, my destiny, seemed insignificant. For years I believed everything he said, believed I was doing the right thing, that this was my path, and in some ways, I guess it was, because it brought me you. By the time I started to doubt him, doubt his ways, it was too late. I couldn’t leave without losing you. That wasn’t an option for me. I was scared to try, didn’t believe in myself, didn’t think I could make it work to save us both, and if you’re reading this, I was right.

I grew up with very wealthy parents and no other family. They hadn’t planned on having me, and the truth is, they didn’t want me. Nothing I ever did was right. They were constantly telling me how much of a disappointment I was, leaving me to be raised by nannies while they went on trying to conquer the world.

When my parents died, they left me everything, but money was all I had. No self-confidence, no self-esteem, had never known what it was like to be loved, and I wanted that, so very badly. I always told myself I was going to have kids and be the best mother in the world. My child was never going to know what it felt like to be unloved, and it looks like I failed in that. I met a man who made me believe it was the right thing to do to withhold affection from you because it should be reserved for him. I hate myself for that, for the ways I let him twist my brain. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It was only a few months after my parents passed away that I met Chosen. I was nineteen, naive to the world, lonely. I didn’t have many friends. He was handsome and charismatic. All the women wanted to be with him, and all the men wanted to be him. He just had that electric kind of personality. When he spoke, people listened, they believed, they wanted to be a part of whatever he was.

I was no different in that respect, except for some reason I couldn’t understand, Chosen wanted me, picked me, made me feel loved for the first time. I had never known anything like that before.

I see now that he picked me because he knew he could manipulate me, that I was so needy for love, he could take advantage of that, and I also had the funds to help him accomplish his goals.

He got into my head, made me believe all the things he preached, that we were doing important work for God and would save humanity. We would be the ones who survived because we were Enlightened. We were what God wanted.

I can’t stress that enough. I thought we were doing the right thing, but we weren’t.

As our numbers grew, we needed more space. There was too much sin in the outside world. It would cloud our Enlightenment. So we moved to the mountain.

When I got pregnant with you, I was the happiest I had ever been. My dream was coming true, and I would spend my life making sure you knew you were the most loved little boy in the world…and making sure you were Enlightened.

That wasn’t what happened. Chosen would get jealous of you, jealous if I spent too much time with you. He would announce that God had spoken to him, and then new rules would be in place. You didn’t sleep with us anymore. Other women had to help take care of you. I was there to serve him.

I’m not proud of the fact that I believed him, that I went along with it. I thought he was right, and by the time I didn’t, my self-esteem was so low, I didn’t think I could do anything about it. I didn’t believe I could escape, and if I did, that I would only be hurting you.

I would sneak away to spend time with you, though, and then I would get punished for putting you above the Lord and Chosen.

Years went by, and there were more rules, more punishments, more ways to keep us apart. He started sleeping with other women, but I didn’t care. I got depressed because I missed my son, my Crow, and that just made him even more disappointed in me. I was broken. I wasn’t worthy of him. I wasn’t worthy of you. He hammered that into my head over and over until I believed him.

The older you got, the more you idolized him. I know how easy it is to let him into your head, and you were just a child. I feared you were going to hate me if I took you away, but eventually, I realized that getting you out was what mattered most.

You deserved better than the life we were giving you.

That’s when I started my plan of escape, but I think I knew even then that it was too late for me. But I swear to you, Crow, it’s not too late for you! It is never too late for you.

I’ve been working with an attorney who is going to help me escape. Over the years, Chosen had gained quite the nest egg himself, people giving him their savings so they could become Enlightened. I have to find a way for us to disappear, or he’ll never stop trying to find you.

My only hope is a better life for you. I want you to experience the outside world. I don’t want you to be hurt, to have your mind twisted in that way he can do. I want you to find love and friends. Those are my greatest desires for you, Crow. Even if you stay here, even if you stay on this mountain that you love, you can have a life, a real life, free of Chosen and his twisted form of reality.

I’m so sorry for not being a better mom to you, but I can’t be sorry I met Chosen. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have you. I’m sorry I didn’t save you sooner.

I love you. I hope you know that. You will always be the greatest joy of my life.

Fly free, sweet boy.

Fly free, Crow.

With love,

Your mom, Annalise

Tears poured down my face, cries caught in my throat. I sucked in breath but struggled to get any in my lungs around the knot lodged in my throat.

My heart broke for her, for this woman who’d been so beat down by life, so hurt, much like me, and like my own mother. While mine had turned to drugs, Annalise had turned to Chosen, and both those things had killed them, but never ever killed how much they loved us.

I cried for young Crow, who’d been denied his mother’s affection. Who hadn’t known what it was like to be held by her, to have her kiss away his tears, to have her paint a Christmas tree on the wall because she knew it would make him happy.

I was lucky. I had those memories of my mom. I would always be able to carry them with me.

When my tears finally slowed, as much as it hurt, as much as it devastated me, I opened the book and read more—the things she’d been through, the evidence she was gathering on Chosen to try to get him thrown into prison, to set everyone free.

And through it all, her love for her son shined brightly.

I read Crow’s additions, his regrets. How he hated himself for not saving her, for believing in Chosen, for not making sure she knew how much he loved her.

I read about Hillary and the pain and punishment. I read about the psychological abuse, the prayers, the worship, and all the ways Chosen had made them show their devotion to him—eating things that would make them temporarily sick, sharing their wives, watching him fuck them and him watching Crow with Hillary.

Crow, who’d been through more pain, more heartache than anyone should ever have to endure, yet he loved with a passion unmatched.

I flipped the page, expecting more stories about Crow’s life before, about his mom, but that wasn’t what I saw.

There was a man in the hardware store today. He watched me, but not the same as the others do, not like I’m someone he will cross the street to avoid, or someone who deserves for women to clutch their purses when they see me.

He doesn’t look at me like I’m wrong…but like for some reason, he just can’t look away.

He brought me food, the man, Cyrus. Billy cornered me at the grocery store. I lost it, felt disconnected, like I wasn’t real. It was like it used to be in foster care. My mind turned off, and I just reacted, but then I heard him…Cyrus. And somehow he pulled me out of it. I left my food in the cart, and he brought it to me. I stalked him, followed him as he tried to get to me, making sure he stayed safe. But that was only part of it. I enjoyed following him, seeing him hear a noise and turn around but not see me. I don’t figure that’s normal, but that’s me. I’m at home on my mountain, keeping it safe.

But I didn’t need to be safe from him.

He should be kept safe from me.

I wanted to fuck him. Wanted to take him, but then he got hurt, and all I wanted was to make sure he was okay. To protect him. To take care of him.

It was…unnerving.

I brought him to my home. Watched him. Didn’t take my eyes off him as he slept.

Haven’t stopped thinking about him since.

The entries about me were short, bits and pieces of his feelings, his confusion, but his want for me… Even from the first time he saw me, Crow felt the same connection to me that I felt to him.

I fucked him against the door, took him hard like I was an animal. He should stay away from me.

I want him to stay.

I watch him sleep, want to touch him, have to bite down on my hand not to. He is…breathtaking.

I don’t want to let him go. Ever.

I can’t stop painting him.

I love him, I love him, I love him.

I flipped the page. There was nothing left, and all I could think was how much I needed Crow.

I scrambled out of bed, an invisible pull from my chest tugging me toward him. I hurried from the room, naked, with the dried cum still on me. I wore it proudly because for me, it was another way to show I was Crow’s.

He sat on the couch, in the spot I’d taken as mine. Deep inside, I knew why. It made him feel close to me. Crow likely sat there all this time, breathing in the scent of me on the fabric so he wasn’t alone.

His back was stiff, his head tilting up when I approached. Pain was etched in every line of his face, every tense muscle, and in the way his lips turned down in a frown.

“I wasn’t fair to her. I didn’t love her the way she deserved. I—”

“No. None of that was your fault. You were a child. She loved you, and it wasn’t your fault,” I reiterated, then climbed onto his lap.

Crow’s whole body melted into me, his arms fixed around me like the thought of letting go was too scary for him to contemplate.

I had always cried easily. Kids at school would tease me about it. There’s this strange concept that men don’t cry. That we don’t show emotion and that having emotions makes us weak.

I believed the opposite, that it made us strong, and when I let go and gave in to the tears, Crow was right there with me, crying for the boy he’d been and all he’d lost, but hopeful too, I thought, in our future together.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Crow

It felt like I blinked and the snow was melting. We’d spent the last of winter fucking, working on the truck, and painting. Our nights reading together and playing cards.

I still liked to do the cooking, but I trusted Cyrus to make food for me. He took Sundays as his day—while Cyrus liked the control I still needed, he also didn’t want to only do the taking. His words, not mine. I didn’t see it as Cyrus taking from me. He gave me more than I could ever give him.

I enjoyed feeding him, not just by making the meals, but feeding him from my hand, which had now become part of our life. Not every day, but we both felt it when the other needed it, wanted it, and like everything else between us, it slipped into place perfectly, this thing that was always meant to be.

We had retrieved the snowmobile, but it was shot and would need parts to fix. I could likely do it, but it was something that had to wait until we went down the mountain again…which brought me to today. I’d been dreading this day for months, probably since the first day I brought Cyrus up the mountain with me. It was time to go into Tranquility. Cyrus had things to deal with, a life to sort out. I trusted him, believed in him, but a part of me would always fear that he would wake up one day and realize he didn’t belong to the mountain the way I did. And that I would have to leave it because now Cyrus was my true home.

“Are you okay?” he asked as I drove. My only answer was to tighten my hands on the steering wheel and nod.

“The words are trapped? That happens when you’re emotional.”

The way this man understood me, the way he supported me, made the chaos in my soul begin to ease.

I gave another nod. He deserved to know what I was feeling.

“I’ll be okay, Crow. I’m not going anywhere. Ever. I promise.”

“I wouldn’t allow it.”

He chuckled.

“I wouldn’t.” Because I would go with him.

“Good. It makes me feel wanted that you would never let me go. While everyone else threw me away, you cherish me. It gets me horny.”

This time it was me who chuckled. He could always unwind me when I was strung too tightly.

“I’m going home with you, Crow. I will always go home with you. We belong on the mountain together.”

Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe it wasn’t smart. There were things we had to figure out. That was proven by me getting sick and the wreck, but the mountain was ours.

We didn’t talk much the rest of the way down. The plan was to go to his apartment. We were going to pack it up, and what we didn’t bring up the mountain, we’d donate or take to the dump. Once we had the apartment cleaned, Cyrus was getting out of his lease.

He was planning on meeting Melody for lunch while I went to pick up the parts I’d ordered for the snowmobile, which were at the post office. Then I’d make a trip to the hardware store.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go with Melody and me?” he asked when we got to the apartment. It already felt like I didn’t fit in my skin, like my whole body was in a cast and I couldn’t move. It was like that every time I left home.

I grunted out my reply.

“She wants to meet you…”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Not… I can’t…”

“Maybe one day,” Cyrus replied, and I nodded. One day I would find a way to give him that. He deserved it, but I couldn’t yet.

“Have you ever been to a restaurant?”

My head whipped in his direction. I was scandalized by that question. Cyrus laughed, clutching his stomach as the sweet sound fell from his lips.

“Okay, dumb question.”

It wasn’t as if Chosen had ever brought us to one, allowed us to go to one, and I refused to eat out when I was in foster care. How could I ever trust people to make food for me like that?

But it was something Cyrus would want to do sometimes. Just another thing to figure out.

We went into his apartment. It smelled musty from not being lived in. We spent the next couple of hours working together. We had just gotten the back of the truck filled for me to take to the dump, when Melody arrived in Cyrus’s car.

She gave me a wave from inside, and I appreciated that she didn’t get out, likely because of the man standing beside me. He would have warned her for me.

“I’ll be back, okay?” Cyrus gave me a small, unsure smile, then started toward his friend.

I grabbed his wrist, pulling him to me, then took his mouth with mine. The need to claim him was too strong to deny. I rubbed my face against his, as if I could bathe him in my scent, warning everyone he was mine and to stay away.

“Okay, that was hot. Hold that thought until I get back.”

I tried to smile but couldn’t.

“I love you,” Cyrus said, and the ball in my chest loosened.

“I love you too.”

I could live off the smile he gave me in return.

I watched until the car was out of sight.

After the dump, I made my trip to the hardware store, then the post office. When Cyrus came back to the apartment, Melody wasn’t with him. He would be following me up the mountain in his car. I didn’t like the idea, worried it wasn’t safe, but Cyrus stood firm in his decision.

The second he reached me, I pulled him into my arms, kissed him, then fucked him over the kitchen counter.

“God, I needed that,” he said breathlessly, fingers clinging and touching. “I missed you too. It was hard to be away from you.”

I nodded, sucking and licking at his throat.

“Can we go to the grocery store and then hurry home?”

I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Yes.” My voice was rough with the same need as his.

There were some foods Cyrus wanted, things he’d been craving that we hadn’t had all winter, like ice cream and Cool Ranch Doritos. Apparently, he was a big fan of both, and I didn’t eat either, so there hadn’t been any at the house.

We met at the grocery store and parked close to each other at the end of the lot. My nerves twisted up my insides, tying me into tight knots. I hated the eyes on me, but even more than that… “They will look at you differently, treat you differently because of me.”

Cyrus frowned, looking at me like he couldn’t believe I’d said that. “Fuck them. All of them. I don’t care what they think. I’ve spent my life being an outsider. It’s where I belong.”

“It’s where I belong too.”

Cyrus nodded, grinned, then interlaced our fingers. I didn’t pull away, wanted the stares from others now because they would see he was mine.

And stare they did, whispering, pointing, but we shopped together, heads held high, hands tight together as we got Cyrus’s junk food and flavored coffee creamer.

When we went through the line, the cashier, a woman who looked to be around fifty, with slight lines around her eyes, looked at us and smiled. “How are you two today?”

Again, relief escaped me on a whoosh of breath.

“We’re good, thank you. Just getting some essentials,” Cyrus told her. I couldn’t give her words, couldn’t give them to anyone here.

“Cereal?” She quirked a playful brow.

“Obviously.”

She and Cyrus chatted while she finished checking us out, before she said, “Have a good day.” Then looked at me. “You too, Crow.”

I would still never belong here. There would always be people who treated us badly, but maybe, just maybe, it would all be okay.

I gave her a nod in return.

We took the groceries out to the vehicles, Cyrus pushing the cart while I kept my hand on his nape in support.

My body stiffened as we got closer and I noticed a police cruiser on the other side of my truck. I stopped Cyrus, putting him behind me, worried they were going to try to take him away, take me away.

“Crow?” he asked as Officer Paulson approached.

“I heard the two of you were in town. News travels fast.”

I growled, and he held up his hands. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Cyrus stepped around me, gave me a comforting smile, then approached Paulson. I watched him, fought every instinct inside me to pull him close and keep him safe.

Cyrus reached out…and shook Paulson’s hand. “Thank you, for your help last year. It means a lot to us. I…I don’t know how to thank you.”

“It’s not necessary,” he replied. “It was the right thing to do. The two of you weren’t hurting anyone.” He looked at me. “You can trust me. If you need anything, just let me know.”

I couldn’t move, not at first. I studied him for any sign that he was lying, that he was waiting to pounce, but he wouldn’t do that, would he? Officer Paulson had helped us. There was a kindness in his eyes that couldn’t be faked.

I nodded.

He smiled. “Billy has been a bear to deal with lately. Be careful when you’re down here, okay? And if you want to call me before you come to town, you can. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

“Thank you,” Cyrus told him. “We appreciate that.”

Paulson nodded, told us goodbye, and then was on his way.

Cyrus came to me, held my face in his hands, and pulled me down for a kiss. “It’s all going to be okay. For the first time in my life, I know it’s going to be okay.” He kissed me again. “Come on, Crow. Let’s go home.”

“Home,” I told him. We put the bags in his car, then went home together, to the mountain, where we both belonged.

EPILOGUE

Cyrus

One year later

“Hi. How can I help you?” I asked the customer who stepped up to the counter at Tranquil Brew.

I’d started working here last year. Melody hired me part-time for summer and fall before the snow came. It was an adjustment. Neither Crow nor I were good at being away from each other, but I believed it was important. Crow struggled with it in the beginning. He feared I would want to leave him, that he wasn’t enough for me, but we’d worked through those fears together.

The woman ordered her latte and a smoothie for her child. They paid, her son hiding behind his mom’s leg, peeking at me around it with a shy smile. I’d been like that when I was young—quiet, hiding behind Mom because it felt like she could protect me from anything.

I signaled to the customer, quietly asking if I could give him a cookie. When she nodded, I pulled one out, wrapped it in a napkin, then handed it to him. He gave me a huge smile in return, one that looked too big for his face, and gave me a quiet thank-you before they went to sit down while I made their drinks.

I didn’t make a lot of money at the coffeehouse, but I liked the independence. It was important to me that I made some money too. Even though Crow mostly refused to take it, I needed to chip in.

And as much as I loved being on the mountain with Crow, the social aspect was good for me too. Or at least, that’s what my therapist said. Crow and I had both started virtual therapy sessions. It wasn’t something I was unfamiliar with, but it was definitely new for Crow. He was struggling with it a lot more than I was and still didn’t completely trust his therapist. When she’d mentioned that our obsession with each other might not be the best—that we could love each other, but that Crow shouldn’t be my reason for existing, nor me his—he’d nearly lost it. But she’d tried to make him understand, and it helped when I told him my therapist said the same thing. It was something we were both aware of and would work on. We were trying, and that’s what mattered. One step at a time. That’s all we could do.

I made the drinks and handed them over. There were more customers now, sitting at tables with their computers or talking with friends.

Melody came out of the back, wiping her hands on a towel. “Izzy and I are going furniture-shopping this weekend. I can’t believe I’m getting a house with my girlfriend. How exciting is that?”

“It is.” I liked Isabelle a lot. She was a nurse, and incredibly kind, and most importantly, she adored Melody and treated her great. My friend deserved the best, and she’d found it in Isabelle. I hung out with the two of them often, and a few times Crow joined us. It was different for him. He still didn’t eat at restaurants, and being in town made him uncomfortable, but we did things like go to quiet parks or spend the day at the lake.

But I could tell that Crow was getting more comfortable around them. The first couple of times, he didn’t speak at all, but now he would, though he was quieter than the rest of us. Melody and Isabelle were great about it, though, supportive, and never treated him like something was wrong with him. Again, one step at a time.

“I want to ask her to marry me. Will you go ring-shopping with me?”

“God yes. Just let me know when, and I’ll tell Crow.”

“Thank you.” She squeezed my hand just as someone came into the coffeehouse.

I felt Crow before I saw him, my skin immediately tingling and my insides feeling more at peace the way it always was around him. I looked up and gave him a smile, Crow returning it, and damn, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. There was nothing like being the person who could make him do that, nothing like being the one he aimed it at.

“Stop drooling,” Melody teased, and pretended to wipe my mouth.

“Ha-ha.”

Crow approached the end of the counter, where we stood. He used to not come in at all, but now he did, though he never ate or drank anything from the coffeehouse, even if I was the one who made it.

“Hi, Crow. How are you?” Melody asked him.

I saw the flash of discomfort in his eyes, but I didn’t think anyone else would notice.

Softly, he said, “Good. How are you?”

“I’m good. Can’t wait to get off work. Moving takes a lot out of you.”

He nodded, and I told him, “Mel is going to propose to Isabelle. I’m going ring-shopping with her soon.”

“Congrats,” Crow told her, offering her a smile, then looked at me, head cocked, seeming unsure of something, but I couldn’t tell what.

“Anyway, I’m out of here. I’ll see you soon.” I hugged Melody, took off my apron, and headed around the counter to Crow.

When I reached him, he hooked his finger beneath my chin and tilted my head up. “Missed you.”

“I always miss you,” I replied, then melted when he pressed his lips to mine.

“Swoon!” Melody teased, and I gave her the finger, being sure to hide it from the customers.

*

“Saw Billy,” Crow said when we got in the truck, and I immediately stiffened. Billy still liked to give Crow a hard time, and that extended to me now. It wasn’t as bad as it could be, and Officer Paulson was a good ally for us, but still. I was used to bullies, and it was easier for me to ignore than it was for Crow, but his therapist had been working with him on coping mechanisms.

“Did anything happen?”

“Ignored him. It was…hard.”

“Good job, baby.” I reached over and palmed his cock. “I’ll reward you by getting you hard in a good way when we get home.”

He growled.

My dick got hard.

Just an everyday occurrence for us.

Crow was quiet the rest of the drive home. I could tell something was on his mind, but I knew it was best to let him work through it.

We got home and didn’t end up having sex, but Crow cooked dinner while I told him about my workday.

Afterward, I got on my knees for him, holding his cock in my mouth, which comforted us both. Crow ran his fingers through my hair, gaze intense on me, so much love focused on me that it nearly stole my breath.

“Do you want that?” he asked eventually.

I pulled off him. “Want what?”

“To be married. I didn’t… It’s not something I ever thought about.”

Oh, my sweet, bighearted mountain man. That’s why he’d looked unsure when I’d mentioned Melody proposing. “I don’t need that. I know who we are to each other. There are legal things we might want to consider that can help if one of us gets sick or if something happens to one of us…but I don’t need to be married. Do you want that?”

“I want you,” he replied simply.

“You have me. Always. It’s not something we have to worry about now, but we can revisit it in the future. We can have something here, just the two of us—and whoever performs the ceremony, of course. Maybe Mel and Isabelle?”

He pulled me up so I straddled him. “Mine,” Crow said, then tugged me down and kissed me.

Maybe I liked this whole marriage idea more than I thought I would.

*

Five years later

My heart raced with the speed of a cheetah and the thud, thud, thud of a stampede of elephants. My lungs were tight, struggling to pull air as I ran through the woods. I jumped over a log, then ducked behind a tree, trying to give myself a moment to settle down.

“Where are you, little lamb? I can hear you breathing. You know I’m going to find you. I always find you.”

Crow’s voice sent a shiver down my spine. He definitely always found me, and I always wanted to be found…eventually, but for this game that we loved to play, the fear of getting caught, feeling stalked, like his prey, was what we both wanted.

His feet crunched on leaves and branches, getting closer and closer. Just as Crow came around the right side of the tree, I darted left and took off running again. There was no doubt in my mind that Crow could catch me, but he wouldn’t, not until we were both ready for it.

I stumbled down a small hill, nearly losing my balance, but I managed to stay on my feet. I wasn’t as good as Crow, of course, but I’d learned to know our mountain fairly well myself. Knew the exact path I needed to take to get to the spot where we’d agreed Crow would take me.

I climbed over a large rock, then looked behind me, a quick glance over my shoulder. With his hair hanging in loose strands around his face, Crow looked more feral than he had any right to.

I ran beneath the tree stand we sometimes used, then down another small hill.

“I’m going to catch you,” Crow called out, even closer now, because yes, he was about to catch me. We were almost at the trees where—

Arms wrapped around my waist, Crow pulling me tight against his body. “You’re mine,” he said, voice low and gravelly, mouth close to my ear.

“Yours,” I confirmed. “Please.”

Crow didn’t let go of me as he started to work my shorts open with one hand. We were prepared, my hole already stretched and lubed. He bent me over, my hands braced on one of the trees.

“You can run, but I’ll always catch you, always claim you and remind you who you belong to.”

“Please, baby,” I said again, not pretending I wanted anything other than what I did.

Crow ripped his own pants open, shoved them down, then shoved into me with one smooth thrust of his hips. My body molded around him. It was tight, and I felt stretched and full, but it was just the way I liked it, our bodies exactly what the other needed.

Crow pulled back, then snapped his hips forward again, cock rubbing against my prostate. My dick was already throbbing, balls full. I wouldn’t last long, neither of us would, but this kind of sex wasn’t about drawing it out—it was about just the two of us, torn down to nothing but our most basic need for each other.

Crow fucked me hard and deep, his groin smacking against my ass. A squirrel ran away from us, birds rushing from the trees, the two of us chasing them away.

“I’m going to fill you with my cum, make you smell like me all day, going to mark you all up so everyone knows you’re mine.”

He threaded our fingers together on the tree, the silver rings we wore shining. We’d gone back and forth for years, trying to decide if we wanted to get married or not. Eventually we’d decided we would, if for no other reason than to make sure we had every legal right to each other as we could have—if one of us got sick, the other wanted to be able to be there. While I had nothing to give, Crow decided it would be easier if the property belonged to both of us, in case anything happened to him.

We had married on the mountain, with only Melody, Isabelle, and Officer Paulson as our witnesses. It was one of the best days of my life.

“Do you want that? Want me to fill you with my cum? Want to feel it running down your legs all day?”

“Yes, God yes.” Crow’s dirty-talk game was improving, and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited about it.

“Ask me.”

“Please come inside me.”

“You only get my cum when I get yours.” Crow spit in his free hand, wrapped it around my cock, and began to stroke. He jerked me off while thrusting fast and hard inside me.

Suddenly Crow pulled out and flipped me, turning me so my ass was against the tree. He lifted me, I opened my legs, and he shoved again.

“Wanted to see what’s mine,” he growled, gaze holding mine.

I loved it when he looked at me when we fucked, loved watching all the emotions playing across his face. My pleasure grew and grew, and I wanted to give him my load so he would give me his.

I wrapped my legs around him as he pounded me. My hand went to my dick, and I jerked myself off. My vision went blurry, the pressure inside unable to stay contained. I cried out, cock spurting, dizzy as I gave Crow exactly what he wanted.

“Mine,” he said against my neck, then bit down. I spurted again, Crow’s cock twitching inside me as he filled me the way he’d promised.

“God, that was good. So perfect.”

Crow pulled me to him.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “For loving me.” He brushed his fingers against my nape, then around to the front, drawing a familiar picture in my freckles.

“You don’t have anything to thank me for. I’m so fucking lucky I get to love you.”

I pressed my lips to his, kissing him until my jaw hurt and the cum dried between us.

“We need to get home,” I said eventually. “Mel and Izzy will be here soon. We need to clean up before they arrive.”

Crow groaned, but I knew he liked it. He made friends with them for me, but he enjoyed them too. They were the only ones to ever be in our house, and it was rare, but we had them over.

While some things had gotten much better, Crow would always be very specific about others: He refused to eat in restaurants, but would get something from Tranquil Brew as long as either me or Mel made it. Mel and Izzy had us over for dinner sometimes, and the first times he wouldn’t eat, but now he did. They were the only two people he trusted other than me.

And things had gotten better in Tranquility too. Most people left us alone. Four years ago Billy had gone to prison for burglary, and once he wasn’t around, his friends stopped bothering us.

Still, Crow hated to go to town, the mountain the only place he really wanted to be, but it was where I wanted to be too. It felt like our own world up here, like a piece of heaven made just for us, where I was safe and loved and comfortable.

Where I could sit in my room for days and not leave the bed if I wasn’t feeling well, where we grew our food, worked on vehicles, and lived a life that was perfect for us.

“If you insist.” Crow pulled up my underwear and jeans first, then took care of his own. He held my hand as we made our way back to the house. “I need to take orders to the post office tomorrow.”

He’d started selling his artwork online. Crow drew and painted nature and animals, and he had quite the following. No one knew who he was, just a man named Crow who painted nature like he was one with it.

“Okay. We can do it when I go to work.”

We got home, where the painting of Annalise that Crow had done three years ago hung above the fireplace. We’d burned the one of The Enlightened long before that.

We showered together, and then Crow pointed to my stool in the kitchen. I rolled my eyes, pretending not to like his bossiness as I sat there and watched him make dinner.

Mel and Izzy arrived not long after that. We had roast and potatoes, and laughed a lot, all of us happy, and then they headed back to town at about eight.

Afterward, we bathed together, Crow washing me and me him before we climbed into our bed.

“I love you,” Crow said into the dark, stroking my hair. “You are…everything to me. My salvation, my reason for being.”

I climbed on top of him, his arms wrapping around me as I nuzzled my face into his hair. “I love you, Crow. You’re my reason too.”

And he would be my reason for everything, every day, for the rest of my life.

Just like I knew I would be his too.

Want more Riley Hart? Look for Morgan, book one in The Swift Brothers series.

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Thank you so much for reading. Reviews are invaluable for authors, so if you have a chance, I’d really appreciate it if you took a moment to review On the Mountain.

Other Books by Riley Hart

Series by Riley Hart:

Inevitable

Secrets Kept

Briar County

Atlanta Lightning

Blackcreek

Boys In Makeup with Christina Lee

Broken Pieces

Crossroads

Fever Falls with Devon McCormack

Finding

Forbidden Love with Christina Lee

Havenwood

Jared and Kieran

Last Chance

Metropolis with Devon McCormack

Rock Solid Construction

Saint and Lucky

Stumbling Into Love

Wild side

Standalone books:

Boyfriend Goals

Strings Attached

Beautiful & Terrible Things

Love Always

Endless Stretch Of Blue

Looking For Trouble

His Truth

Risk the Fall

Standalone books with Devon McCormack:

No Good Mitchell

Beautiful Chaos

Weight Of The World

Up For The Challenge

Standalone books with Christina Lee:

Science & Jockstraps

Of Sunlight and Stardust

About the Author

Riley Hart’s love of all things romance shines brightly in everything she writes. Her primary focus is Male/Male romance but under various pen names, her prose has touched practically every part of the spectrum of love and relationships. The common theme that ties them all together is stories told from the heart.

A hopeless romantic herself, Riley is a lover of character-driven plots, many with flawed and relatable characters. She strives to create stories that readers can not only fall in love with, but also see themselves in. Real characters and real love blended together equal the ultimate Riley Hart experience.

When Riley isn’t creating her next story, you can find her reading, traveling, or dreaming about reading or traveling, spending time with her two snarky kids, and swoony husband.

Riley Hart is represented by Jane Dystel at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Literary Management. She’s a 2019 Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Of Sunlight and Stardust.