Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

Right. “I have to go,” I say. “Leave you with Mr. Tall, Dark and Brooding.”

She flinches, and I wonder why—but then I see Griffin.

He’s standing at the door, frowning. Two dog tags hang around his neck. He’s leaning against the doorframe, looking more exhausted than nonchalant. With the tousled black hair, dark eyes and dark clothes he’s wearing, the sharpness of his features and a gauntness that speak of sickness, he looks like the love child of a mafioso and a catwalk model.

My anger at him rises again, but I’m distracted by the way he’s looking at my sister.

See, I never got a chance to talk to him. I swear, I don’t even know what his voice sounds like. Every time I’ve seen him with my sister, he’s seemed distant and standoffish, even downright annoyed.

Right now, though… right now, his dark gaze is soft as it passes over Sophie, emotions flickering behind it like distant lights.

I wonder if he heard our conversation. He seems lost in thought, oblivious.

Then he turns around and leaves, his steps thumping dully on the floor as he goes.

My sister’s mouth trembles. “Griff,” she breathes, barely audible.

Oh, Soph… I wish I knew what to say to her, what she’s waiting for, what it all means. But I have no clue.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Merc

Matt is driving his new double-cabin pickup, all of us piled up inside—me, Cos, my sisters and Jarett. Cos is practically in my lap, no complaints there of course, while Jarett has his arm around Gigi. Octavia is sitting in the front with Matt, talking to him so quietly I can’t hear a word she says over the hum of the radio. It’s playing a country station, and I’ve already filed my complaint about that, to no avail.

I think Matt is doing it to annoy me. Or maybe that’s Octavia, in charge of the music? That’s one sister I never managed to educate.

Anyway, the low-level noise is lulling me to sleep. Though the pills are out of my system by now, I didn’t sleep well last night, despite Cos’s warm presence in my bed. It doesn’t help that it’s a cold, miserable, rainy day, water sluicing down the pickup windows as we drive out of St. Louis. And having Cos so close relaxes me, while making a certain part of me rock hard.

Small jolts of pleasure travel through me as we roll on the road, and I pull Cos more snugly on top of my hard-on. She wiggles and gasps, and I hold on tight, grinning against her back.

“Settle down, wildcat.”

“Merc.” She wiggles some more.

“Cos,” I mimic her voice. “Stop.”

God, if she doesn’t stop moving, I’ll be walking around Destiny with a wet stain in the front of my pants.

But I don’t want her off me. I love having her like this. Having her with me distracts me enough not to notice as we approach my birth town and setting of my nightmares.

I try to remember if I returned at all in the past few years since we moved away.

I don’t think I have.

No surprise there. Even though I had a pleasant childhood, I never felt like going back, never felt nostalgic.

Fuck you, nightmares or memories or whatever the hell you are.

Cos struggles a little and I relax my hold, realizing I tightened my arms around her as my thoughts turned to the goal of today’s mission.

She points out the window. “Is that Destiny?”

“Already?” I mutter.

To be honest, I thought it would take longer.

Like… a thousand years or so. As if time can wait for me to get my shit together before I step out of the pickup. Destiny has felt more removed, remote, since we moved. As far as the other side of the moon, a place I only visit in nightmares.