Chapter Twenty-Eight
Monty
When he’d run upstairs at the sound of anguished, bellowed cries, he’d nearly pissed his pants in fright. He’d never heard such pain-filled cries. One look at Kendrick’s devastated expression and Monty couldn’t get his mouth to work to ask what the hell had happened.
Rue had been off since that morning, looking preoccupied. He knew it wasn’t work as they’d been through the long list of things he’d been tasked with and they were all under control. When they’d left the house that morning, everything was the same as usual.
So Monty’s mind raced with a thousand and one possibilities to what would have Rue looking broken. Unhinged. His eyes were those of a victim. Fuck, they were so much like the omegas they’d brought to the ranch, it was terrifying. What had set him off? What had he said to Kendrick?
He snuggled into Rue, giving comfort but also seeking it when he was scared about what it all meant. He used his fingertips, sliding down Rue’s side, feeling his breathing even out.
He kept quiet, despite how many questions were darting around his brain.
He’d understood the warning look from Kendrick, even when he didn’t get the reason for it.
Monty could hear the slow steady beat of Rue’s heart while also listening to Kendrick move around in the kitchen below.
Both sounds helped to keep him from unravelling.
He must have drifted off to sleep with Rue when a light touch to his shoulder brought his groggy gaze to Kendrick’s.
“How long did I sleep for?” he murmured softly, aware the man beneath him was sleeping.
“About an hour. You both looked so peaceful, I thought I’d leave you for a bit.”
Rue stirred, and a warm hand slid over Monty’s bare backside. “Sorry,” he mumbled sleepily.
“It’s cool,” Monty answered, slipping sideways, noting the velvet throw Kendrick must have covered them with as he nestled into Rue’s side, tucking the throw over his ass.
Rue’s body relaxed against him, yet still there was something about the stillness that was… watchful. Almost as if he were waiting for an attack.
Kendrick grabbed a laden tray off the dresser drawers and came back to the bed to sit at Rue’s side. He had slipped on a pair of shorts at some point. He stretched out his legs and placed the lap tray down onto his thighs. “Meatball subs. Hope that’s okay?”
At their nods, Kendrick handed over the laden plates. Monty could see the tension around Kendrick’s eyes, but his expression didn’t reveal any of what was going on in his head, leaving Monty in the dark.
They ate in silence, the food delicious despite it no longer being warm. They shared a can of soda, and that was enough to suggest to Monty, whatever conversation they would have, Kendrick wanted them all clear-headed.
Plates cleared and the tray placed on the floor, Monty felt the tension in Rue’s muscles increase.
One for always facing the hard stuff head on, Monty inhaled the familiar scent of the men who meant more to him than he’d ever have thought possible. “Can someone tell me what happened in the shower?”
Monty heard the air whistle through Rue’s teeth and witnessed his whole body stiffen. He gave Kendrick a pleading look, unsure what he was asking for when he was flying blind.
“Rue, do you think you can explain to Monty and me what happened to you as a child?”
Rue wasn’t a fidgeter, so Monty’s nerves stretched to screaming point at how Rue plucked at the velvet throw, his gaze transfixed on the seam like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. He watched as the man seemed to cave in on himself—shrink.
Monty chewed the inside of his cheek to stop himself from prompting Rue when it was evident he was finding this situation difficult. Monty’s chest hurt. The struggle to take a breath was real.
Kendrick shook his head when Monty gave in fifteen seconds later, his lips parting to speak. He closed them and sucked his lower lip in between his teeth, clamping down on that sucker to do as Kendrick wanted—give Rue the time he needed.
Seconds felt like hours as the silence continued, and Rue never once looked at either man, making the sub he’d eaten plunge unpleasantly around his guts.
About to demand somebody say something with how his mouth watered with the desire to vomit, Rue spoke.
“When I was about ten, my parents, who were divergent, got asked to join a crash. They were so happy that they didn’t question why a crash without divergents would suddenly accept them. Then, not long after Mom got pregnant, the crash was super excited until my brother was born.”
His actual parents, he’s talking about his actual parents. A brother? He had a brother before…
Kendrick made a noise in the back of his throat that was more wounded animal than human and effortlessly lifted Rue onto his lap so that his back pressed into his chest, wrapping an arm around his middle.
He spread his legs to allow Rue’s to sit between his thighs.
Then Kendrick tugged Monty to their sides.
It wasn’t rightly comfortable, but Monty didn’t move. He nestled closer, terror growing as Rue’s breathing became labored.
“I didn’t know at the time but there was a blood test being developed to identify divergent children. I’m sure Mom and Dad would never have agreed to them testing Wade if they had known.”
Wade. Tears burned his nose as they slipped down his cheeks when his mind skipped to what was coming, without his permission. He had a brother called Wade… before.
If Rue heard his hiccupped sob, he saw no signs of it as he continued to speak stiltedly, stopping and starting.
“They wanted me… wanted to breed me with other crash members. Their numbers were failing due to infertility. They weren’t concerned that my parents were divergent because they saw me as a miracle.
Strong.” He stared straight ahead, his own tears dripping off his chin unnoticed.
“I wasn’t strong, or I’d have been able to stop them…
stop them from coming and stampeding through my home…
through my family until they were nothing but pulp on the floor. I wasn’t enough… to save my brother.”
The anguish brought Monty up to his knees.
His cry came out as a croak of distress at the words plowing into him harder than a battering ram.
He straddled Rue’s lap facing both men, unconcerned that he was crushing anyone, when they’d been in the position before.
He took hold of icy cheeks, his lips trembling as he worked to hold on to the riot of emotions Rue’s distress caused, or the bloody visual that wanted to paint a macabre picture in his mind, one that Rue had lived with.
Used to shield himself behind.
Oh, goddesses.
Monty could suddenly see exactly why Rue held back. “You answer me this.” He came in so close he could feel Rue’s ragged breaths hitting his wet skin. “How many of them were there?” The urgency pushed him to prove Rue wrong.
“It does—”
“No. No, don’t dismiss it. How many?” I wasn’t enough. Did he believe he wasn’t worthy of… love? It chilled Monty to his very core, despite the rage that fired his soul to seek out the motherfuckers and… there was nothing worse he could think of.
“Ten…”
“Rhino’s?” Monty shuddered, but persisted, needing Rue to hear himself. Fuck, ten rhinos on a rampage, he couldn’t even imagine the carnage. The nightmares such an act would cause for the boy Rue was.
“Y-yes.”
Kendrick moved to grip hold of Monty’s waist, bringing them closer together. Monty didn’t look away from Rue, but he felt the restraint Kendrick was using to stop from hurting him. The fingers dug in as if trying to keep hold of something, to stop the need to crush something. It was how Monty felt.
“As an adult, do you believe you could defeat ten rhinos at the same time?” He had to make Rue see beyond the past pain. The hesitation gave him hope.
“I… no,” Rue whispered, barely loud enough for Monty to hear.
“No. You couldn’t save them, but I’m damn positive your parents would be happy you escaped. That’s important to so many people.” Monty leapt off the cliff without a backward look. “To me.” His hands trembled as he held Rue, kissing him softly.
“I love you. You’re enough for me.”