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Vampires didn’t crave blood the way he did right fucking now.
“If she hadn’t fucking been there, if you hadn’t been sniffing around her, if—”
The implication pissed Skye off enough to make the unwise decision to put herself between the two angry men. Tiger immediately had his hands on her, but she’d planted herself. She supposed his brother stopping short on the rant to register what she’d blasted at him was the only thing that kept Tiger from jerking her out of harm’s way.
Which was good, because she didn’t want to have to spear her heel through the alligator skin of that boot to tell him she was going to make her point, damn it.
“Stop this. He’s deaf. He can’t hear you. And you’re upsetting your daughter.”
Rose was holding Aubrey tight, about ten feet away. Though the little girl’s eyes were wide, her hand clutching the one her grandmother had across her chest, what Skye registered in Aubrey’s face was a managed fear. Even without her mother’s death, she was sadly familiar with borderline violence unfolding in front of her.
Skye had used Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley voice, the “get away from her, you bitch” tone. Tiger’s back was ramrod straight, he was handling this, but the pain overflowing from him and his brother was a fight itching to happen.
When he’d been talking to Aubrey, and then standing with Skye at the high top, she’d noted him squinting, occasionally rubbing at his temples. He needed to get out of here, and though she’d believed it was right for him to come, there was no reason they had to belabor the point.
When she’d used the voice software, after his initial surprise, Colt had noticed her medical bracelet. Fortunately the side with the wordMutewas face up. His lip curled.
With a laser stare, she dared him to say one ugly word. His brother’s stability obviously concerned Tiger, and she wasn’t normally reckless. But watching him take those emotional blows when he was already suffering such deep guilt and pain from what was happening here, the past and present combining to flog him over and over…
No.She wasn’t going to sit back and let his brother add barbs to that flogger and tear him to shreds.
But Tiger was his own man, one who didn’t hide behind anyone to fight his own battles. When his hands tightened on her, she saw his anger had been leashed, measured resolve taking its place. It was time to step back. Reluctantly. This time when he nudged her to his side, she went.
Tiger met his brother’s gaze. “You know why she’s dead. Everyone here does. Life is hard. Don’t make it harder.”
Colt stared at his brother. As the silent moment drew out, another factor entered the picture. Aubrey.
Somehow she’d left Rose’s grasp, and stood at her father’s side. She touched his hip, drawing his attention. She moved between the two men and touched Tiger’s hand, too. She gestured, wanting him to kneel down to her level.
When he did, she lifted her hands to his ears, closing her fingers over them. She looked at Skye’s cell phone. “You can hold your phone so he can see what I’m saying?”
Skye nodded and brought the mic close to her again, the screen turned toward Tiger. “Is it hard not to hear, Uncle Tiger?” Aubrey kept her gaze fixed on him. “I’m so sorry.”
He gave her a wan smile, a squeeze of her waist in her velvet dress. “Plenty other things are harder, sweetheart. You’re the best kid ever.” Then he took another breath and looked up at Colt. “I’m sorry about your wife. I’m sorry I didn’t see it coming and I couldn’t stop it.”
He straightened as Rose stretched out a hand, bidding Aubrey return to her. Skye noted her grandmother gave her a sad smile, but also an approving nod.
Tiger’s eyes were half closed against the club house lights. He was also turning pale and clammy. Skye gripped his arm. He needed to get out of here.
Fortunately, he recognized the need for an exit himself. When he gestured to her to head toward one, he was ready to follow. However, as they passed a silent, quivering Colt, Tiger dipped his head to say one more thing.
Though Colt stiffened, Tiger had pitched the words so no one else could hear them but Skye. She assumed that was so Colt didn’t have to answer the challenge; he could just think about the words, what Tiger intended by saying them.
“Be good to that kid. Do what’s best for her. Because at the rock bottom of your soul, you know she’s the only proof your life hasn’t been a total waste.”
CHAPTER TEN
Tiger didn’t go to the truck. Instead, he took Skye toward the farmhouse, heading to a spot behind it. There was a pond there, a swing hanging from a giant oak beside it.
He knew he was moving as if he were made of glass. When he stumbled over a root, it was because his eyes were almost closed. Since he wouldn’t willingly deprive himself of any other senses, Skye apparently realized what was happening. She took a firm grip on his arm. He didn’t resist her help, and folded down on the swing right when they reached it, rather than offering it to her first. The alternative was passing out, but he’d still apologize to her later.
He dropped his head in his hands, fully expecting his skull to crack open without the support. “Not here, not here.” The adrenaline spike was going to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“What happened to me isn’t shit.” Though he couldn’t hear himself, it felt like his words were slurred, mush in his dry mouth. “I hold that little girl and feel all she’s lost, and I see Nicole again, who loved her so much. Christ.”
Hammers were bouncing off his temples. A pounding storm in silence. Silence versus quiet. He hated silence.
Skye was quiet. Quiet held substance, meaning. Not a sickening void that made him want to throw up his internal organs.
