Chapter 34
The rain came down like the sky had split open, drumming against the tops of the trees, and soaking through fucking everything, to the point where the earth itself was turning to mud beneath my boots.
The storm should have drowned out every sound, but I heard him anyway.
Shiloh never could move quietly, not when he was pissed off and stumbling around with a bottle of whiskey in his grip.
He’d filled his gut with so much fucking alcohol that he could barely string a thought together, much less hunt an animal. The thing he was stabbing now was a rock. And the idiot yelled at the thing like it was some fox ready to bolt from his might.
Oh, Sunshine. What the fuck am I going to do with you?
I’d followed him out here because I couldn’t fucking stay away. I told myself it was to watch him fade, watch his guilt eat him alive, and to revel in the pain he’d caused me as it reflected back onto him.
But the truth was, I couldn’t watch him suffer anymore.
I had my fun.
The news was filled with Carmen’s death, and Shiloh flinched every time Xanthy cried for her friend. His guilt was killing him, but not faster than the fucking alcohol he drank like a sippy cup.
He couldn’t breathe without me knowing. And tonight, Christ, tonight he was a fucking mess. He opted for a bow, probably because the shot of a rifle made him recoil. And now it hung loose in his hand. The strings looked like dew-covered spider webs from the rain.
His beautiful blond hair was disheveled and plastered against his face. He walked like a man dragging chains behind his ass, and I could smell the liquor on him even from yards away.
He was hunting as he did every day, albeit mostly to avoid my nagging, self-centered sister. But it wasn’t the deer he wanted to kill, or the rabbits, or the foxes. The look in his tired blue eyes told the truth. He came here to kill one animal.
Himself.
Don’t even fucking think about it, Sunshine.
I leaned against a tree, watching as the storm slid down my face, the tears I never allowed myself to shed. His shoulders rose and fell in heavy slumps. His breath was ragged and hoarse.
I couldn’t make out the muttering. Maybe it was bitching at Xanthy. Maybe curses for the wedding he clearly didn’t want to attend, or maybe it was prayers to a God who never fucking listened.
He let an arrow fly into the dark. It went wide, vanishing into the brush, and he laughed like a man broken: low, bitter, and humorless. My chest tightened. Even drunk, soaked, and broken, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever fucking seen. But he wasn’t mine.
He was hers.
I pushed off the tree, circling him closer, my steps hidden by the storm. On a good day, Shiloh would know I was here. Instead, his drunk ass staggered forward, bent low like he thought he was stalking prey, and lunged at a stick poking out of the ground.
Pathetic.
Mine.
I wanted to call him out, fucking mock him, and remind him of what he was.
Hiding, always fucking hiding.
Now trying to hide from a wedding he didn’t want to touch because he knew it went deeper. That my fucking sister would want more. My throat locked around the words.
Wedding.
I trailed after him. The wet soaked his shirt, making the muscles across his back stand out, the bow slipped from his fingers, and his knees nearly buckled with every uneven step he took in the muddy terrain. The air reeked of whiskey and rain, yet still I ached for him.
Fucking Sunshine.
“Shiloh,” I said at last, my voice too low, barely cutting through the storm. But he heard me.
He froze, his head lifting slightly, his blue eyes searching the shadows. I saw the bleariness in them even from here. He blinked and swayed, then laughed again like he thought I was a ghost, tilting that stupid bottle back to his lips.
“Care Bear?” he slurred, his voice rough. “The fuck you doing out here? Bring more dead bodies to haunt me with? Or maybe come to tell me you murdered someone else I loved?”
I didn’t answer. I stepped closer, the mud sucking around my boots like quicksand. He looked at me like I was a mirage, his brain not knowing whether or not to believe.
I didn’t dissipate.
I stood there as the rain ran down my jaw and onto the ground between us, close enough to him now that he could feel my body heat. Blinking rapidly, his breath hitched, as if he saw me clearly.
That familiar fear.
That familiar pull.
It tugged like a marionette string, and I was helpless but to follow the lull.
“I’ve been watching you, Sunshine,” I said truthfully, reaching for him but letting my hand fall away.
“Why?”
“Someone has to. You’re stabbing rocks, leaving carcasses to rot all over the damn trails, and you look like fucking hell.”
He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, smearing rain, sweat, and whatever tears he wouldn’t admit to. “Didn’t ask you to. I don’t need anyone. Especially you.”
“Well, unfortunately for you, dumbass, my darling sister has no inkling of how to handle anything that isn’t buying designer handbags, and you’re likely gonna be shipped off to a psych ward.
Are you forgetting her degree? Every second you slip is a second she analyzes what’s underneath that stupid mask. ”
I tilted my head, studying him. The way he couldn’t quite stand up straight, the wobble to his posture, and the tremor in his hand where he held the bow. My gut twisted with equal parts anger and hunger.
My stupid, self-destructing masochist.
“You think drowning yourself in whiskey’s gonna make my sister disappear? Xanthy’s still waiting, Shiloh. She’s not going to stop.”
And neither will I.
His jaw locked, and he stumbled forward, muttering. “Fuck you.”
I smiled, sharp and humorless.
“Oh, you want something outside your dreams, Baby Boy?” I closed the shallow distance between us, slow and tauntingly close.
“Every day, all that pretending. It must be exhausting, Baby. Pretending to love her, pretending you don’t love me.
But all this hunting, drinking, and fucking can’t erase me, can it? You can’t scrub me out of your mind.”
He staggered back a step, slipping in the mud. His hand went out for balance, catching a tree, and when his eyes found mine again, there was that raw edge I’d always wanted to rip open, the fear tangled with want, and hate knotted with intense hunger.
And desire.
“Stop playing big, bad hunter when you’re drunk off your ass,” I remarked, almost gently, though it came out like a growl. “You are much too smart to act so incredibly stupid. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I am fucking fine,” he spat, but his knees told a different story as he fell back into the tree. “What if I am, Carrington. So fucking what. Mad you won’t be the one finally to end my sorry ass life too?”
I moved fast, close enough to see the pulse hammering in his throat. Close enough, I felt the heat of him even in the storm. I reached out and snatched the whiskey bottle from his hand and slammed the glass onto the trunk above him. Glass littered down, some cutting his beautiful face as he hissed.
“Don’t fucking say that, Shiloh. You wanna die so bad?”
I reached up to his throat, holding the remaining jagged edge of the bottle to his thrumming pulse.
“If you go out, it’s by my fucking hand, Baby Boy. You ready for that?”
My lips twitched, aching to feel him, take him…remind him where he really belonged.
He pushed forward, the glass breaking skin and creating a shallow cut. His eyes were pure rage and pain.
“Go ahead, Care Bear. Do it. You stole my life the minute you chased me down. Be a man and end what you started.”