Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
brINLEY
Kai’s cries echoing from the other room nearly broke me in two, and I shot upright, head spinning as I was dragged from whatever the fever was that had been blistering between me and Silas and to Kai’s reality.
Soul wrenched when I felt the terror radiating from his room.
I didn’t think that part of me could break any farther as I watched Silas blaze out the door, the cries breaking off a moment later.
Silas’s soft voice echoed, then came closer as he returned to the doorway of his room.
Kai was in the security of his arms. The tiny baby tucked close, his head burrowed up under his chin. As close to him as he could get because he knew he was safe there.
I guess I somehow knew that’s where I was safe, too. That no matter how hard and battle-clad Silas was, he was a haven.
A haven for his men.
A haven for his family.
I had a hunch he was the only one who didn’t know it.
Kai’s cries shifted.
Quieted.
Soothed as Silas slowly rocked him and kept running his hand down his back.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
“My Siwas?” Kai hiccupped through his tears.
“Yeah, buddy. Your Silas. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Ohhhh-kay,” that baby mumbled into his chest.
Crushing.
It was absolutely soul crushing.
The amount of sorrow and love that suddenly splintered out from the middle of me.
A breaking apart and a coming together.
Brittle pieces knocked free and a knitting of something profound winding itself into the vacant, harrowed places.
I thought Silas must have felt the impact because that ferocious, unrelenting gaze fell on me.
Sadness and devotion and something that looked like his own terror poured out.
It turned out he was right all along. I was looking for trouble.
I was in so much of it.
Because I knew right then he would destroy me.
He was nothing but a bomb dropped right in the middle of barricades and levees I’d built up to protect myself.
Atomic.
Complete annihilation.
Silas slowly shuffled over to the bed and crawled in beside me with Kai still in his arms.
He laid down with the little boy, and I followed suit.
No restraints or securities left.
Not after him touching me and showing me that I could be. That I had the power to ask for what I wanted. For what I needed.
Not after he’d held me after.
And sure as hell not after this.
Kai nestled in the sanctuary between us. His little thumb went to his mouth, and he hugged his blanket to his chest as he released a jutting sigh, the horror of the nightmare that had woken him expelled into the calm swells of the lapping night.
He made little grunting noises as he snuggled deeper, and Silas stared across at me from over his head.
Jaw clenched, eyes wide and fathomless.
Letting me see all the way to the bottom.
Where maybe he was every bit as afraid as the rest of us.
Another stuttered breath filtered out of Kai, and he rolled around to face me, still sucking his thumb as he curled into my chest, his free hand fisting up in Silas’s shirt that I wore.
On instinct, my hand went to his back to pull him closer. Wanting to shield and guard him, too. Or maybe it was just a bare, blatant promise that I would.
A toil of brand-new intensity suddenly blazed out of Silas, and his palm slipped to my cheek.
And I guess that was the point when everything cracked.
When there was no ground left below me.
When I stumbled.
When I fell.
Already sure I’d be crushed at the bottom.