2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Shay

"Master Shay, Master Shay, please wake up."

The urgent voice tugged at my consciousness, invading the peaceful darkness I had been floating in.

"Master Shay, you have to wake up."

Groaning, I moved my head to get away from the annoying voice. The slight movement caused pain to explode across my face and head, and I let out a pitiful moan. Every single cell in my body hurt in some way. Had I been in an accident?

Was Lucas alright? Had our car been hit?

"Master Shay!" The sharp tone, followed by a forceful yet somehow still gentle shake of my shoulder, had me trying to blink my eyes open. I was pretty sure only one of them opened fully. "You have to go before he comes back!"

Our butler–because of course we had a butler–Albert Santos leaned over me, his wrinkled face filled with worry, his dark brown eyes troubled as he took a quick glance over his shoulder. The events of earlier came rushing back to me, at the same time all my nerve endings decided to wake up and flood my body with sharp stabs of throbbing pain.

Edward. Fuck, he'd been drunk and out of his mind, hopped up on something.

Rolling to my side, I gasped as my ribs screamed at me. They were badly bruised but not broken. I knew the difference by now. Pausing to catch my breath–what little of it I could get into my aching lungs–I saw Albert's hands hovering over me. Like he wanted to help me but didn't know where to touch me that wasn't going to hurt me. The answer was nowhere. There didn't feel like one place on my body wasn't throbbing with some level of pain.

My throat ached from my cold and from Edward's fingers digging into it, cutting off my airway. I felt a cough bubbling up, tightening my chest, and I braced myself for the agony the act was going to cause.

"Lucas?" I gasped when my coughing fit was over, and I found it hadn't in fact killed me.

"The missus is gathering some things for him. We've been trying to coax him from his hiding spot but I'm afraid he won't come out for anyone but you. He thinks Master Edward–" he choked on the words, his dark brown gaze not meeting mine.

He didn't need to say it. I could figure out what Lucas was afraid had happened. That this time, this time Edward had finally done what he had threatened me with so many times. Hell, maybe Edward did think he had killed me and that was why he had left. The truth was probably that one of his many " friends" had picked him up, so they could continue their night out partying. He probably hadn't given me another thought.

It was a dance we did, Edward and me. He got fucked up, came home angry and looking for a fight. And I acted as his own personal punching bag. Who needed a gym membership when you had Shay Pierce to practice your right hook on? If it meant he left the baby alone–left Lucas alone, even though he wasn't a baby any longer–I would let him knock me around. Edward left, and I healed. He came home, both of us acting like nothing had happened, and our lives continued.

One endless dance.

Finally able to get my legs underneath me, I stood shakily, trembling like a newborn foal. The room swam dizzily for a minute, and I felt Albert's hands lightly steadying my arms.

Albert handed me a wad of Kleenex, motioning me to wipe my face. I did my best to clean up the worst of the blood, so that I didn't completely frighten Lucas more than he already was. It took several tissues to mop up the mess my nose had made. With shaking fingers I tested it, wincing when I touched the sore appendage. But it didn't feel broken this time. My lip was split, and I reasoned the blood was a combination of my nose and lip. My left eye was rapidly swelling shut, but I didn't have time to fuss with it. I'd clean up when I packed my bag, once I got Lucas to come out.

"Thank you," I managed, tossing the bloody rags into the trash can in the room. I waited a moment for everything around me to stop spinning.

"Master Edward's taken the Ferrari," Albert informed me, his voice tight. That damn car Edward's father had bought him for his last birthday–after endless whining from Edward–was going to be the death of him. Or someone else .

Turning to look at Albert sharply, I groaned, "He's driving? Please tell me he's not driving."

Albert's answering silence told me what I feared, as we made our way slowly down the hallway to Lucas's bedroom. Me, with one hand on the wall to keep myself upright and one hand wrapped around my aching middle. Albert followed, holding his hands out, like he was going to be able to catch me if I did fall.

The man was an alpha, but he was pushing seventy if he was a day. I had about three inches and seventy pounds of muscle on him. If I went down, I'd take him with me.

" Mijo, please come out for me ," the soft, feminine voice that drifted out into the hallway belonged to Albert's wife, Maria, our housekeeper. They were both well past retirement age, and I had a strong suspicion they were only still working here because of Lucas and me. They loved my son as much as I did, and in some ways, they had become substitute parents to me. As much as they could be, anyway.

Panting against the pain, I haltingly made my way into Lucas's bright blue bedroom. His bookcase was moved several inches, books scattered on the floor in front of it, to make room for Maria's short, round body. She was crouched down on her knees, the cubby door open, holding a hand towards the opening.

"I'm here, Maria," my voice was raspy, barely above a whisper. "Let me get him."

Fuck, bending down was going to hurt. There was a good chance if I got on the floor, I might not make it back up. Instead, I leaned against the opening, so that Lucas could see my body and whispered, "Lucas, come out for daddy. I'm okay, I promise, but we need to leave. Can you come pack some things for me?"

Albert helped his wife to her feet, and worry radiated from both their lined faces. Albert kept glancing at the doorway, as if waiting for Edward to materialize like some ghost coming to haunt us. I could tell by the way he angled his head he was using his shifter hearing to listen for the roar of the sports car returning.

I doubted Edward would return tonight, but I wasn't taking any chances. I was getting Lucas out of this pretty dungeon now. I would just leave whatever vehicle I took at the bus station. None of the cars parked in our four-car garage were in my name. I had no doubt if I took off in one of them it wouldn't be long before I would be pulled over for auto theft. I'd be in cuffs and Lucas would be snatched away from me.

Hopefully the meager money I had saved would get us a bus ticket far enough out of Dallas that I could call my long estranged brother, Asher. If he couldn't come get us, maybe he would at least be able to buy us a ticket for the rest of the journey.

Lucas's dark head appeared, his blue eyes watery with tears. He rushed at me, and I had to brace myself when his thin arms hugged my legs tightly. Stroking his baby soft hair, I whispered, "I'm okay, I'm okay."

It was a lie because I was about as far from okay as I had ever been, but he needed me to assure him. If that meant lying to my son, then I would lie.

His little body shook against me, and I didn't know which one of us was trembling the hardest .

I had tried my best to shield Lucas from most of it. But as he'd gotten bigger it had been harder. He wasn't a baby anymore. He understood things that he heard. He saw things, no matter how hard I tried to hide them. I would not let the monster that Edward had turned into hurt our son.

"Shh," whispering, because it was all that my ravaged throat could produce for sound, I tried to calm his tears. "Help Maria pack some of your things in your backpack. We can't take too much so just what you can't live without. You need clothes more than toys." Tilting his chin up with a finger, I gazed into eyes identical to mine. "Things can be replaced. Just the important stuff."

He nodded solemnly, understanding as much as any six-year-old could. Maybe a bit more. I had tried my hardest to instill in him that things weren't important. Things were just objects that could be replaced or lived without.

Maria ran a hand down his back in a comforting caress. "Come Mijo, let's get your things. It will be better this way, you'll see. Your daddy will take good care of you. He'll keep you safe."

Albert had vanished while I'd been busy getting Lucas out of his hiding spot, and I prayed he hadn't heard Edward returning. It might be cowardly, running off in the dead of the night, but it beat the ugly scene I knew would happen if Edward returned.

Edward might not want me or Lucas, but he wasn't about to let us leave without a fight. We were like toys he had grown tired of, yet he wouldn't let anyone else play with what was his. Especially Lucas. He might not have wanted Lucas, but he knew there was no way he would be able to explain Lucas's absence to his father. And Edward's father held the purse strings. The man might turn a blind eye to his son's flaws, but he had always been a doting grandfather.

Edward would put up a fight and I honestly didn't know if I had the strength left to get us safely away if he returned. If I could shift, we'd have a chance, but my tiger was silent, not even a niggling from him. My tiger had been silent for so long, I couldn't remember how long it had been since I had felt him beneath my skin. Since I had been able to shift. It had been before Lucas was born. My tiger had abandoned me, just like I had abandoned everyone and everything I had ever cared about.

Karma was a bitch.

Albert returned at the same time I made my way back from my bedroom with my own duffle bag. Even though I'd only tossed a couple of changes of clothes in it, my toiletries, and some pictures I wanted of Lucas, the thing felt like it weighed a hundred pounds in my hands.

I had taken a few minutes to clean my face, wincing at the damage the bathroom mirror had reflected. Changing into a clean shirt had left me gasping, the skin along my left side already starting to turn purple with bruising. Took a few precious minutes to take pictures of my face and ribs, sending the photos to my email address. This time I didn't bother to delete them from my phone like I normally would.

Albert grabbed my hand, pressing something cold into it. Running a finger along what it was, I recognized a key on a ring. "Take her. She'll get you where you need to go. You've kept her in tip top shape for us."

He was talking about their old red Ford truck, that he lovingly called Trixie. The thing was fifty years old, but he was right. I'd kept her in great running condition for them.

I had missed getting my hands dirty under a hood, and after he had taken it to a place that had charged him a ridiculous amount of money for a shoddy oil change, I had made sure to do all the maintenance on her. Of course, I'd had to do it when Edward wasn't home, since him seeing me doing anything I loved would put him in a mood . And no one wanted Edward in a mood.

"I can't take your truck," I tried to press the key back into his hand, but he shoved it back at me with surprising strength. Or maybe I was just that weak right now .

"You can and you will." His tone told me not to argue. "The missus and me, we love you both like our own. We only stayed on because we were worried about you both. Needed to help you the best way we could."

And he had helped me, something I would be forever grateful to him for.

"Now here," he pushed a white envelope against my chest, "it's not much, but it's something. It will help get you someplace safe. And I've written up a bill of sale for Trixie. She's yours, free and clear."

"But–"

"No buts," Albert wrestled the envelope into the side pocket of my duffle against any of the protests I was trying to mouth. "You take Master Lucas, and you go. You get someplace safe. Master Edward–" he hesitated, shaking his head full of white hair, "he's not a good man."

"Neither am I." I swallowed against the regret that threatened to choke me.

He gave me a long, hard look. "You're one of the best men I've ever met. You just need to remember that. But this isn't a good place for you or the boy anymore."

Maria stood with one hand on Lucas's shoulder, squeezing lightly. Tears glistened in her brown eyes, and she gave me a wobbly smile. "We packed just enough. Clothes and a few things he thought he couldn't live without."

Lucas stood up straight, and it nearly broke my heart to see my baby putting on a brave front through his tears. His blue eyes looked too big in his pale face, his dark hair flopping over his forehead.

He had on a pair of pajamas covered in Dalmatian dogs, his sneakers that lit up when he walked, and a light jacket. It was June, but we'd had endless storms the last few days, bringing a slight chill to the night air. He had his Tigger backpack in one hand and his ragged, stuffed bunny tucked under one of his arms. The fur had once been soft and white, but now was a dull gray. He'd had it since before he was born, and I knew Lucas wouldn't leave Mr. Rabbit behind.

"I need Mr. Rabbit, Daddy," he pleaded, "and my green egg book. And my monster book."

Giving him a smile, I ruffled his hair. "It's fine, kiddo."

"I tucked in a few coloring books and his crayons," Maria told me, "to help him pass the time."

"Thank you." I gave her a side hug, one arm still wrapped around my aching ribs. Between my ribs and the tightness of my chest, drawing in a whole breath was getting harder and harder. And the coughing nearly had me crying out in pain. But I couldn't let any of it stop me. Adrenaline was keeping me going and upright, and I was thankful for it. "I'll try to get word to you somehow when we get where we're going."

Albert shook his head, "Only if it's safe. Don't you worry about us. We'll be fine."

My chest tightened with something besides my infernal coughing. I didn't know how to thank them, these two people who had come to mean so much to both Lucas and I over the years. They were sacrificing so much for us, when I knew they had very little to spare. Edward's family might be loaded, but they paid their house employees barely above minimum wage. Somehow, I would find a way to pay back their kindness.

Slowly, so slowly because every step fucking hurt , we made our way down the ridiculously long, winding staircase that would take us to the front door and freedom .

The heavy, ornate double doors were blocked by a huge man, and I stopped short just shy of the last step, holding Lucas safely behind me with one arm. The man's dark eyes locked with mine. Cold, hard, impenetrable.

He'd been my jailer disguised as my driver. Helping Edward keep me in the pretty prison that had become my life. Reporting back to him every place he drove me, everything he heard or saw.

He was bigger than me, this alpha, even though I wasn't a small man. My brain was foggy, but the need to protect my son had my adrenaline amped up. It didn't matter if I needed to go around or through him, I was taking Lucas out of here. Tonight. And no one was going to stop me.

"Marcus…" I growled, low in my scratchy throat, abused from all my coughing and Edward's fingers.

"Don't come back here."

The words were low, quiet, but firm. They took me by complete surprise, not at all what I had expected him to say.

"No matter what pretty words he says to you. No matter how many tears he cries. No matter how sorry he says he is, or that it won't happen again. It will happen again. He's not sorry, and he can make those tears come and go at will. Take the boy and don't look back."

A look passed between us, an understanding of some kind. This man had been in my shoes. Maybe not mine exactly. Perhaps my son's. Our gazes locked and I gave a short, quick nod of my head. Swallowing hard, I whispered, "I won't."

Because I had believed Edward when he had said he was sorry. When he had cried and begged me not to leave him. When he had sworn he loved me and he would never do it again. I had believed him, over and over and over. Until I hadn't. Until I couldn't any longer.

Marcus moved out of the way, opening the door for us.

Letting us go.