Page 18 of Skye
It’s the fear that wakes me. I jack-knife up, my heart pounding as the remnants of the nightmare nips at my heels. Sweat collects between my shoulders and across the back of my neck, leaving a sticky clamminess behind.
Engulfed by darkness, I fumble for the lamp on the bedside table. My breath tears out of me in ragged gulps as I find the switch and flick it.
The room floods with light, chasing the shadows away, but it doesn’t settle my wildly fluttering pulse.
I turn my hands over, expecting to see blood coating my skin, but they’re clean. The dirty deed I committed isn’t visible, not to anyone who looks at me, but I feel it staining my soul.
Fuck.
I don’t know how my father kills without any remorse. I feel it deep in my gut, a visceral pain that I can’t stop gnawing at me. I didn’t much like Scarlett in the end, but I didn’t have the right to kill her.
Or the guard.
I didn’t even know his name and I’ve stolen his life.
“You okay?”
The voice makes me jump. I snap my head around and see Rage sitting on the sofa adjacent to the bed. I don’t know how I missed him when I first switched the light on, but he’s sitting so still, so quiet, like a dark sentinel.
“What are you doing?” The words slip out before I can really consider whether I should say them.
For a moment, he says nothing, as if he’s not really sure himself what he’s doing. “I… I didn’t want to go too far in case… in case you needed something.”
I can see how much it costs him to admit that, and I don’t know why but my pulse does a little flutter in my throat. “Oh. I’m okay. You don’t need to sit with me while I’m sleeping.”
“You collapsed, Skye. You ain’t okay.” He’s not wrong, but even so, I don’t want any fuss. “What were you dreaming about?”
My breath catches in my throat. How do I explain to him the guilt I feel? I don’t know Rage, but I know men like him. Jack would’ve never had a moment of remorse for taking a life.
“I was dreaming about Scarlett and the guard.”
Sinking back into the pillows, I try to slow my pounding heart and ease the ache in my gut. I had to do it to survive, and when I think about my baby dying at their hands, I feel even worse that I know what I did was necessary.
Rage pushes up from the sofa, and I take a moment to study his physique. He’s not overly bulky, but he isn’t small either. Broad shoulders and a body that is clearly made for sinning are all I see as he sits on the edge of the bed, our bodies connected only by a small brush between his thigh and my knee. It’s enough to make my skin heat anyway.
“I meant what I said earlier. You shouldn’t feel shit for them. They tried to hurt you, Skye. What you did was self-fuckin’-defence.”
It was, and I don’t doubt that for a second, but I still can’t turn off my guilt.
“She was my friend,” I say in barely a whisper, my heart squeezing. “Or I thought she was.” I don’t like the bitter laugh that escapes my lips, but I don’t stop it. I am bitter. She turned me into someone I never wanted to be. “I don’t know how to deal with my feelings about it.”
I expect Rage to mock me for my pathetic behaviour, but he doesn’t. He places a hand just above my knee, and I freeze, my heart starting to race. “Life makes us do things sometimes that we’d never imagine ourselves capable of.”
“Have you done those kinds of things?” I don’t know why I ask this. Rage is clearly a man who does not stop to consider consequences, and he’s someone who lives on the edge of his anger all the time.
“And worse,” he says. “You protected yourself and… our baby. That’s all that matters.”
My hand slips to my stomach as a protective wave washes over me. “Rage, what happens now?”
“What do you want to happen?”
I consider this question, completely at a loss how to answer it. I have nothing and no one. My survival is at the mercy of Rage’s generosity. He can choose to keep me locked in this room forever, or even kill me once this baby is born. I have no say in anything and that should terrify me, but I’m not scared. He has been protective with me, standing against his club friends and even the doctor.
I don’t believe Rage wants to hurt me.
“I want to be safe, and I want to meet my baby when she comes.”
His fingers trail over my leg through the thin sheet covering my body. I want to push it aside and let him ease the growing ache between my legs, but I don’t dare move in case he stops.