Lexi’s hands were on him now, rubbing up his shoulders, trying to soothe him, but it wouldn’t fix the crack in his soul. The deep, dark one that he’d patched up with a single strip of duct tape so he could appear to be normal on the outside.
Fuckin’ Robbie.
Keep her.
“It was a bad dream.” His voice came out too low, too gravelly, too panicked. He cleared his throat. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
What did he want from Ryder? To fuck up the next thirty years of his life? He’d just gotten Lexi, and now Robbie was going to fuck it up. Not if you don’t let him.
The ghost-sound of a resounding slap echoed through the room. You fuckin’ little freak!
Ryder closed his eyes against the vitriol in Robbie’s voice.
Desperate to escape his head, Ryder rounded on Lexi. He shouldn’t do this. Shouldn’t. He should let her go back to sleep so Robbie’s evil reach didn’t touch her through Ryder, but he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted out of his head, and Lexi could make it all better.
Ryder pulled her close and covered her mouth with his. When he plunged his tongue deeply into her mouth, she gasped. Keep her.
But then she gave him salvation. She didn’t push him away and tell him to get his shit together. Lexi—his Lexi—slid her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. And as if she knew what he needed, she straddled his hips and rocked against his half-mast erection. That did it. He hardened by the second, and she was already wet. She would be so fuckin’ tight right now because he wasn’t taking the time to prepare her, but fuck it. He needed her wrapped around his dick now. He needed to lose his mind.
Ryder flipped her over onto her hands and knees and gripped her hips as he pushed into her. Stroke one, and the tension was already easing from his shoulders. She cried out as he pushed into her again, and as he froze, thinking he’d hurt her, she gasped out, “Harder!”
Fuck, she was saving him, and she didn’t even know it.
Ryder reared back and thrust into her again, buried himself balls deep inside her. He didn’t stop but pummeled her until she was screaming his name, touching herself, rubbing her own clit. His balls clenched as he yelled out and shot his load into her. He wanted every creamy drop he had to give inside of Lexi right now. He wanted her messy. He wanted it running down her thighs and pooling on the bed sheets. He wanted her to smell like him, salty and rutting.
Lexi came hard, clenching his dick in quick, pulsing release as she moaned over and over. Good mate, knowing what he needed.
Like she had no bones at all, Lexi fell forward on her elbows, chest heaving and ass up in the air. So fucking sexy, but he shouldn’t have done this. Not as a reaction to Robbie. She deserved better.
With a slick sound, Ryder pulled his dick out of her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. Fuckin’ failure.
“What for?” she asked, confusion tainting her pretty voice.
Ryder grabbed his cell phone from where he’d dropped it, snatched his jeans off the floor, and bolted out of the bedroom.
“Ryder!” Lexi called. Her bare footsteps sounded hollowly on the floorboards behind him, but she wasn’t fast like him. She wasn’t a freak like him.
He bolted for the woods and then hid in the shadows. He hated himself as he watched her cry on the front porch. He wanted to rip his hair out and scream as the flashbacks pummeled him again. Robbie was supposed to care for him more than anyone in the world, but he’d broken him instead. Not just once or twice, but systematically for years. Pain made up his first memory. Fucking Robbie and fucking shifter healing that allowed that prick to hurt him as much as he wanted.
He should’ve told mom. She would’ve killed him, and then Robbie wouldn’t be scratching at the locked safe of nightmare memories. Or he should’ve told Mason. Mason would’ve split Robbie from dick to throat and pissed on his intestines, but abuse didn’t work like that. The physical part hurt, but the mental part was even worse. Abusers knew how to make their victims think the pain was their own goddamned fault. If Ryder had only been good enough, or human enough, Robbie wouldn’t have had to hurt him. Blah, blah, fuckin’ blah. Robbie’s apologies afterward were always the same. Non-existent or blaming Ryder for not being a better kid.
Fuckin’ little freak, you better not tell your mom. Little pussy. Are you still crying? God! Sometimes I really hate you.
He used to lock him in a dark closet afterward so Ryder could think about what he’d done. It was a cop-out. Robbie was just hiding his bruises and cuts and broken pieces from the world. Ryder had been scared of the dark, but did Robbie give a fuck about that? No. He reveled in Ryder’s crying. Told him over and over it was time to “man up.” Five fucking years old, and he needed to man up after being beaten?
Ryder remembered Robbie fighting his mom hard to get time with him, but then he would leave him for days with Ryder’s grandparents. And when he did show up, his temper was like dynamite, the fuse already lit and half-burned up. If Ryder wasn’t the perfect little pretend-human in every way, he got shattered. Ryder would Change into his owl out of terror, and it would make his real dad even madder. Robbie was openly anti-shifter and so ashamed of Ryder’s inner owlet.
Ima beat that animal right out of you.
Five fucking years old, and Ryder had twenty memories of abuse to conjure in flashbacks. Stupid fucking mind for being like a steel trap, clinging to all the goddamn horrors. He was supposed to love me! Ryder clutched the back of his head and wished to God he could cut that part of his brain out of his skull.