Page 34 of Frost and Venom

“Your father made you feel as if you were always disappointing him, didn’t he?” Wilder guessed. He brushed another kiss onto the top of her head. Trailed more to her left temple and down to the corner of her mouth. His lips were whisper soft, yet somehow managed to leave behind the effect of tiny dancing flames on her skin.

“Yes,” she admitted. “He likes to make people feel small. He always delivers his lines with a smile and in the guise of helpful advice, unless he is angry. When he gets angry, he’s cutting and snide, filled with contempt and making certain you know you are far beneath him in every way.”

He’d asked and she’d answered, but it felt strange and a little scary to share so much of herself with someone else. She was revealing things about her family, but more importantly, about her. Things she had been taught practically from birth to keep secret. It made her uncomfortable and left her feeling more vulnerable than ever.

“My father wanted to make a man out of my brother and me. He liked to torture random people for whatever fake grievances he could conjure up when he needed to hurt someone. That need was there almost daily. If he didn’t have anyone else to hurt, he came after my brother and me. Half the scars on my body were his doing.” Wilder spoke so matter-of-factly that she almost didn’t understand what he said. His voice was low, that same velvet softness he used most of the time.

She tilted her head back again, her eyes meeting his. The light green of his eyes seemed to burn brighter than ever, nearly glowed. In that moment he looked more animal than man. More killer than human. Her breath caught in her lungs and stayed trapped until her chest felt burned and raw—not from fear. She was looking straight into the hell he had trapped in his gaze. That was somewhere deep, just as the trauma of her childhood was trapped deep in her.

“Honey.” She whispered the endearment and slid her arms around his neck to lock her fingers at his nape, her heart aching for him. Had he sounded angry or bitter, it would have been so much easier. The patient acceptance in him was her undoing. She brushed kisses along his strong jaw and over his stubborn chin. “Where was your mother? Where were the cops? Wasn’t there anyone to help you?”

He was quiet for so long, she was afraid he wouldn’t continue. “You don’t have to tell me anything else if you prefer not to, Wilder. I don’t talk about my family or my upbringing even to my friends. Or at least, I give minimum information. I totally understand.”

She did understand, and she never wanted Wilder to feel as if he had to disclose information about his past—about his family—in order to appease her. “I’m already committed to you. I know that you’re my choice. You probably will come to regret that you persuaded me. I’m a total disaster, but no matter what, you’re my choice. You don’t have to give me anything you don’t want to.”

He framed her face with his large hands and tilted her head so she was looking directly into his eyes. “Right there is why I fell hard for you, woman. You may not know it yet, and I’ll get you there, but you’re extraordinary. There is no one else in this world like you.”

Wilder pressed his forehead to hers. She breathed him into her lungs. Took in his scent. It was strange how intimacy could be about everything but sex. They hadn’t had sex. She didn’t feel any pressure from him, only this extraordinary closeness she’d never experienced with another human being.

Even the sound of the phone ringing obnoxiously couldn’t detract from that moment. Their moment. That shared intimacy she felt with him that she’d never experienced before.

“My father ran a survivalist camp in the Rocky Mountains up near the Canadian border. He deliberately chose an area that was difficult to get into—or out of. Misfits, angry vets, men who had grudges and were just as sadistic as my old man, joined him. He beat my mother and kept her totally isolated, even from the other women. Mostly because the things he liked to do to her and us couldn’t be hidden. When I got old enough, I tried to interfere. The best I could do was keep his attention on me while she found a place to hide.”

He gave her a twisted smile that didn’t go anywhere near his eyes. “My brother was four years younger than me. His name was Jay, and he had a smile that could light up the world. He adored our mother.”

She despised the note of sorrow that leaked into his voice when he looked so completely stoic. She found herself holding her breath. She knew whatever he was about to tell her would be bad. Very bad.

“One day, Mom met us in the house while Dad had gone up the mountain with his friends. She had a duffel bag stuffed full of her belongings. I knew by the look on her face, but Jay…He was certain she was taking us out of there. Getting us away from him.”

A muscle ticked along his jaw. He raked his fingers through his hair several times. “She told us she was leaving, and she couldn’t take us. Her excuse was that if she went alone, without us, she’d have a better chance of getting away clean. He might let her go. But if she took us, he would never stop looking. Never. She was right too.”

“Wilder.” She breathed his name, needing to hold him.

“Jay pleaded with her to take him, but she refused. She just walked out. He was devastated.”

Jay wasn’t the only one devastated. Harlow knew Wilder had been just as destroyed, maybe even more so, but he would never admit it to himself.

“She left you knowing how your father was? Knowing how he treated you?” She couldn’t hide her shocked reaction. It was his mother. The woman who should have been protecting her sons. There was a short silence. She was positive she had offended him.

“What would you have done?” His green eyes looked even lighter, almost glowing at her in the darkness.

“Honestly?” She stuck her chin in the air. “If he were torturing my sons and beating the hell out of me, I’d probably introduce something into his food to make him drowsy, and then I’d slit his throat when he was asleep. I’d have my boys packed and ready to go, and we’d go armed. Anyone trying to stop us would get shot.”

“Baby.” One word. Gentle. His voice washed over her like a warm embrace. “You wouldn’t pull the trigger.”

“I would if a child needed protection. I absolutely would, Wilder. You persist in thinking I’m some kind of saintly woman, and I’m not. That man would have been dead had I been his wife.”

He brushed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I was thirteen when she left. My brother, Jay, was nine. The next few years were hell, but we survived. My father would ‘teach’ us survival skills, including torture and interrogation. We had to practice using weapons and hand-to-hand combat. I figured the training would come in handy, so I threw myself into it. He didn’t neglect our education. He was very exacting with any child up there. They had better be excellent and fast at learning any subject. We had tutors, and we were expected to give one hundred percent at all times.”

Harlow found herself waiting for the worst possible news. It was there in his voice, that calm, flat tone that shouldn’t have given anything away, but she was beginning to read him. She felt the knots in his stomach, the arctic-cold anger that had been pushed down so glaciers covered the volcano beneath, where no one could see.

“He tried to separate us, Jay and me, but I wouldn’t let it happen. I became so good in the woods that his men couldn’t track me, but I could track them. I always found Jay, no matter where they took him. My father would send me down for supplies with a couple of the others and hold Jay there because he knew I would never leave if he held my brother hostage. And I didn’t. I made it very clear to Jay that I would always come back for him.”

There was a grim edge to his tone that warned her. She found herself tense, very apprehensive, so anxious that a part of her was panicky.

“I was seventeen when I came home from a supply run, and my brother was nowhere to be found. Neither were my father or most of his men. I had a bad feeling, and I had learned to never ignore my instincts. I tracked them into a particularly high altitude, but with a drop into a deep ravine. I’d been there once before. It was where my father would go when he was feeling particularly ugly and wanted to hurt someone. That was entertainment to him. Pure enjoyment. You could say he lived for those moments.”

“You knew what you were going to find.”