Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Crow

Iliked 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.