Pucking Unhinged (Kings of Castlebrook #3)

Prologue

WINTER

A loud crash wakes me.

Not the kind that comes from outside. Not thunder. Not a car door. Not the wind knocking something over.

No, this is louder. Much sharper. Familiar enough to tear me from a restless sleep.

I hear glass shattering.

Something slams against the hardwood floor.

Then again. Louder this time. Metal crashes into the wall, the thud of something heavy hitting the floor. A low, guttural sound tears through the air. It’s absolutely half rage, half panic, and it makes my stomach twist.

I sit bolt upright in my bed, breath already caught in my throat like my body knows before my mind does.

It’s Tristan.

He’s having another night terror.

I throw the blankets off, my bare feet hitting the cool hardwood as I rush out of my room.

The sounds are escalating, and that’s got my stomach twisting.

This is hardest on him, but it’s never easy for me to see him like this either.

There’s a grunt, the screech of furniture being shoved or tipped, another crash that seems so loud that the walls should tremble.

He doesn’t always yell. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes he thrashes and claws at the door like he’s trying to tear his way out of a nightmare. Sometimes it sounds like he’s in a fight for his life, and to be honest sometimes I think he is.

I don’t bother knocking on my foster brother’s door.

I push it open fast enough for it to bounce off the wall.

They always tell me not to wake him, every single professional, his father, even his brother.

His teammates, Hayden and Callum keep their mouths shut because they’re confident in me that I know him better than anyone.

He won’t hurt me. He never does. He calms down as soon as he realizes that it’s me here with him.

“Tristan,” I say his name, but I know he can’t hear me. He’s mid-nightmare and I’ll have to touch him in order to bring him out of his own personal hell.

The room is a war zone, dark except for the moonlight spilling through the curtains he let me put in here.

He’s standing at the far end near his closet, chest heaving, eyes wild but unfocused.

He’s shirtless, and there’s sweat gleaming off his skin.

His fists are clenched like he’s seconds from striking again.

The nightstand I picked out for him is sideways.

A lamp is shattered in the corner. The mirror above his dresser has a crack spiderwebbing from the center like something heavy hit it.

Judging by his bloody knuckles, I can take a wild guess what that something is.

Tristan’s eyes sweep over me, but he doesn’t see me.

Not really.

“Tristan,” I whisper again, stepping closer to him. He’s fucking huge, dwarfing me by more than a foot, but I’m not afraid of him. My heart is cracking in my chest for him.

He turns toward me too fast, muscles tensed, whole body coiled like I’m the threat.

“It’s me,” I say, calm and quiet, reaching out to rub my hand along the top of his forearm. “It’s Winter.”

Tristan’s breathing hitches and his head jerks like he’s trying to shake something off. But then, for the briefest second, his eyes clear when I pull my hand away.

He blinks. His body stutters. His fists loosen.

And then, in the smallest voice I’ve ever heard from him, he whispers, “Winter.”

My heart cracks in half.

I wait until I’m sure he’s fully back, like the fog has cleared enough to let him see me before I touch him again.

“We’re okay. We’re not there anymore.” I know exactly what night he’s remembering right now.

Tristan’s voice cracks. “I thought?—”

“I know,” I cut in gently. “But we’re home. We’re safe.”

He sinks down to the edge of the bed like his legs won’t hold him. He drags a hand through his hair, jaw tight.

I sit beside him, close but not touching. I don’t rush him. I never do.

He’s been having these night terrors every so often since the carjacking. That night his mother was murdered right in front of us. Since he was forced to hurt me just to keep us alive. He never talks about it, but I know what he sees when he closes his eyes.

And I know what happens when his body finally gives out and lets him sleep. This.

The destruction. The panic. The painstaking recount of everything that happened between us.

This is why he doesn’t sleep like he should. Why he stays up until exhaustion drags him under against his will.

His dad has tried everything. Therapists. Specialists. But nothing works. Nothing reaches him. Not really.

And the truth is, I don’t know how to help him either. They all say being close to me is making it worse, and that’s when he shuts them out, cuts them off, and refuses their services.

I feel useless. Helpless. Like I’m watching someone drown while standing on the shore with nothing but empty hands.

Worse than that?

I feel responsible.

Even though I know it wasn’t my fault. I know it wasn’t, but I can’t say there isn’t still a part of me that aches with guilt.

Because he never had nightmares like this until he was forced to hurt me.

He only did it to save me from a worse fate.

They were going to take me with them, and I need him to understand how grateful I am that everything that happened that night was only between us.

What makes it all so much worse is that he pushes me away when I try to comfort him.

For a long time, I thought maybe it was because it felt too intimate. Too close. Like maybe if he let me hold him, it would cross a line we weren’t supposed to cross. But now I’m not so sure why, because I can feel his body jerk toward me like he craves my touch.

Now I think it’s because he doesn’t think he deserves to be comforted.

Not by me.

And I hate that even more, because he’s the best person I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. He’s the only person who has ever truly made me feel safe and cared for.

Sometimes I catch the way he looks at me. And in those moments, I don’t think it has anything to do with guilt or obligation. I don’t think he’s just being protective because he feels bad for what happened.

I don’t know if he feels the tension that I feel, the heat under the surface, the weight of everything we never say. A small part of me wonders how on earth he couldn’t because it feels so strong to me.

I’ve always been attracted to Tristan Vale. I’ve always wanted him in some way or another. But with his parents fostering me, with the lines we’re not supposed to cross, I didn’t know if he’d ever see me that way.

He’s always been protective, even from the beginning. From the moment we met, there was something about him that locked onto me like I was his to watch over.

To me, it wasn’t brotherly. Not for a single moment.

Tristan’s twin brother, Sebastian, acted more like a traditional big brother.

He didn’t hover. Didn’t coddle. If someone messed with me, he’d step in and shut it down, but that was it.

Those moments were few and far between, because Tristan was always there to take care of me first. He never stopped watching. He never stopped showing up.

It was like the second our eyes met, something just… clicked. Like we both knew. Like something in our bones decided we belonged to each other. That we were each other’s person.

And that’s what makes this so gut-wrenching.

Watching him suffer because of something he did to protect me and not being able to fix it.

When I think of Tristan, I don’t see the same broodingly silent guy who so many have called rude over the years.

He’s never been that way, and in fact, he’s always done everything for me.

Even before the carjacking. Even when we were just awkward strangers under the same roof, he’d treat me like I was something fragile and precious.

He’d bring me my favorite snacks without me asking. He’d carry my bags, fix things in my room before I even noticed they were broken, walk me to class even when I said I didn’t need him to.

The princess treatment.

That’s what I called it in my head, even though back then I think even a part of me thought I was just wishing for someone to care about me when no one ever had.

And the truth is, I think that was always his way of loving me, even if he didn’t know it.

“I couldn’t find you,” he murmurs suddenly, like he’s still half in the dream. “I couldn’t—fuck, Winter, you were gone.” I don’t know what his night terrors consist of, because when he’s awake and capable of talking about them, he acts like they’re not a big deal.

“I’m here with you,” I whisper, and that’s all it takes.

But then Tristan stiffens. His jaw locks, and he shakes his head hard. “I hurt you so much. Leave. Get away from me.”

The words cut, even though I’ve heard them before. His default. To push me away. To suffer in silence. To convince himself he can handle it alone.

I don’t move. Instead, I press my hand against his bare chest, right over his racing heart. His skin is hot, slick with sweat, his muscles twitching under my touch. Slowly, deliberately, I slide my hand down, tracing the ridges of his abs until my palm rests low on his stomach.

His breath stutters. His head drops forward, dark hair falling into his face as if he can’t bear to look at me.

“Let me stay,” I whisper. “You need me to stay.”

He lets out a sound that’s half gasp, half groan. His whole body trembles under my touch. And then, in a broken whisper, he says, “Fuck.”

The anguish in his voice guts me, but he leans into my hand, like he can’t help himself. Like the contact is both too much and not enough.

He doesn’t realize how overtired he is, how weak his walls are when exhaustion drags him down like this. I think maybe, just freaking maybe, I can convince him to let me stay with him tonight.

I don’t have night terrors like Tristan does, but sleep doesn’t come easy for me either.

I never feel rested. Never feel like I get a real night’s sleep.

And when I’m with him? It’s not better. Because instead of closing my eyes, I want to stay awake.

I want to watch him, rub his back, soothe him while he finally gets the peace he’s been denied for so long.

Because if anyone deserves peace, it’s my Tristan.

I move closer, my palm sliding up over his stomach and across his chest. My breath is warm against his jaw as my fingers slide over his shoulder and curl around the back of his neck.

I can tell that it takes everything in him not to pull away and tell me to leave.

Instead, he closes his eyes and folds into me, his huge arms coming up and around me.

His palm slides down my back, fingers finding the small of my waist and tugging me to him with a fierceness that feels like the sweetest pain.

He buries his face in my neck, inhaling me like he needs me to keep breathing.

“Just this once let me help you instead of the other way around,” I say, softly.

He dips his head against my skin again and breathes my name like a prayer. “You don’t have to do this,” he tells me, voice raw.

I pull away enough to meet his eyes, and the half-broken, half-pleading sound that leaves him hits my ribs like a fist.

He’s the strongest person I know. Watching him break is like being punched in the gut repeatedly, but genuinely nothing he has tried, from therapy to straight up violence, helped him break through the guilt of hurting me.

So fuck everyone, including his father, who has made comments about how he drags me around like a rag doll or security blanket.

Maybe I like it. Maybe it helps me too. It’s really, and I say this with my whole chest, none of their fucking business.

I take Tristan’s hand, fingers interlacing with his, a silent promise that I’m not letting go.

I tug him toward me, and he obliges, folding himself into the space beside me with a careful tenderness that feels so familiar.

There’s never been anything else that I can compare to what I feel with Tristan.

It’s like I’ve known him before I met him, like there’s been other lifetimes and he’s found me in every single one of them.

He looks like he’s about to pull me into his arms, to curl his body around mine the way he always wants to, but I stop him. I lie back, resting my upper back on the fluffy pillows, and pull him toward me.

He doesn’t argue. That’s how I know he really needs this.

He settles next to me and lays his head on my chest. I pull the comforter up over us and let my hands find his hair, threading my fingers through the dark strands. He breathes out, a sound that I’m absolutely sure is both relief and surrender.

His hands are restless for a moment, like there’s this nervous energy taking over him.

“I want you to touch me too. If you want to, I mean. It’s okay with me,” I tell him because I know he thinks that because those men forced him to take my virginity at gunpoint that I shouldn’t be able to stand his touch.

But I crave it, I want it, I need him. One of Tristan’s hands clumsily slips under my night shirt, thumb brushing my hip before roaming up my ribcage.

His fingers flex against my skin and then, slower, they trace down the length of my thigh until they find the pale, puckered scar that bars the memory I try not to think about.

He doesn’t touch it like it’s just any old scar.

He pays reverence to the simple act that saved my life that night.

Tristan strokes over it like he’s trying to soothe something he caused.

The truth is, if he hadn’t cut me as a distraction, he and Sebastian would have never been able to overpower the men.

It was risky, but it saved my life, and I’m so grateful to be alive and have that scar even if he’d never believe that.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, Tristan,” I whisper. His whole body tenses, thumb pressing over the raised line, and I can feel the tremor under his palm and the way his breathing is starting to become erratic again.

“Match my breathing, Tristan. I can’t settle unless your heart stops racing.” He’ll do it if he thinks it’s for me.

He’s quiet for a long moment, and then his chest finally slows. With each breath, I feel the rush of him letting go, inch by inch, until the tightness that lives in his shoulders starts to unspool.

I can tell he’s almost asleep because everything feels lighter now. It’s not the thrashing, animal-like sleep that steals Tristan most nights. His breaths are even, like a tide pulling out. I know, with a hollow, grateful kind of hope, that this might be the best sleep he’s had in a long time.

“Mine,” he rasps sleepily, pressing his face to the thin nightshirt covering my breasts. “Say it, dushen'ka. Tell me who you belong to.”

His breathing is steadier when I answer, and I know he’s asleep before he can hear the words that I mean with my whole heart. “I will always, without question, belong to only you.”