“No,” Cypress says firmly. “He does not hold you to blame for any of it. That’s not why he’s staying away. It’s that he doesn’t want to frighten you.” Cypress presses his forehead to mine. “It’s not just that he killed that man, it’s also knowing how easily it could have ended another way. Knowing that it isn’t over. Knowing that something went wrong in Preston that he thinks he should have prevented.”
“But it’s not his fault either.” I shake my head. “Cypress, I just want to know how to help him. Help me understand.”
He takes a deep breath, smiling a bit before asking, “What did you see that night by the water? When you followed us.”
My cheeks heat. “I didn’t mean to follow you.”
His finger comes beneath my chin, keeping my eyes on his. “What did you see?”
I sigh. “I saw him grab you when you started to walk away. I saw him kiss you.”
He nods. “Anything else?”
“No,” I mumble. “I didn’t want to intrude.”
He grins and leans in to brush his lips over mine. “You should have.”
“Cypress.”
He pulls back with a soft chuckle. “The first time we came here, he was like this, too. I was hurt, he felt responsible, and he was…brooding.”
“And,” I press, “what did you do? To bring him back?”
“To take his mind off our brush with death?” Cypress smiles again, wicked enough to truly be the devil himself. “I reminded him that we were still very much alive.”
I keep my distance until the sun is about to set, walking up to set Cypress’s rifle on the front porch before grabbing a change of clothes out of the wagon and heading for the creek.
I hadn’t seen a single animal the entire time I’d been out hunting. The entire forest apparently also knowing well enough to give me a wide berth. Which is why…I just need some time to get out of my head.
That man needed to be killed. Deserved to die a lot worse than the death I gave him. He’d threatened Cora, threatened Cypress, believing I would simply sit there and allow him to take what’s mine.
I can still feel the anger beneath my skin, dark and thick and…what the fuck is wrong with me that I’m standing on a creek bank, picturing killing a man that I’ve already killed once?
I can’t go around Cora or Cypress. Not like this. But it’s all I fucking want to do. A chant inside my brain that just gets louder the longer I refuse to heed it.
I should have let Cypress help me take the edge off as he offered, but neither he nor I had been willing to leave Cora unguarded again, and I had been unwilling to have her as a participant while I’m like this.
I don’t want her to see me like this. Don’t want to stain her innocence with my guilt.
I shake my head, trying to jar myself out of it with the motion, trying to strip away the fury in my brain as easily as I strip away my clothing.
When I can’t, I wade in, the deepest part of the creek bed coming to just above my hip bones, and as good as the cool water feels on my skin, it still does nothing to abate the heat in my blood. I kneel, close my eyes, and dunk my head below the water before resurfacing.
I want to yell, to break something. I want to—
“Hey!”
My eyes fly back open as a voice snaps through the quiet, and I stand, ready to sprint for the bank and my weapon before I realize the identity of the intruder.
“Fucking Christ, woman,” I spit out, panting as I try to slow my heart rate, but I swear again when I see that Cora is barely wearing any clothes as she stands with her arms crossed on the bank a few feet away. “What in God’s name are you doing out here half-naked?”
I see the way her eyes travel over my bare chest and abdomen as she takes me in as well, the way they turn just a bit owlish, and a streak of male pride snakes down my spine right as she finally registers my words. She looks down at herself as if unsure what I could mean before she says back, “Little late for you to get proper again, Aiden, don’t you think?”
My eyes narrow, knowing just as she does that there is nothingproperabout the thoughts in my head. “Has Cypress seen you like this?”
Her eyes narrow right back. “Of course he has.”
“Mm-hmm.”Of course he has. Fucking demon.“And where is he now?”