by Laken Cane
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Rune murmured.
But she knew it was the truth.
Poor kid.
“I’ll have her taken to a room,” Eugene said.
“A normal room.” Jack glared at the older man. “We’ll be visiting her every day.”
Eugene nodded, and Rune saw a gleam of pity in his eyes. “Certainly. We’ll take care of her.” He looked from Jack to Rune. “We need to debrief you, but that can wait. See to Levi, then go home to Kader. Get some food and sleep and we’ll catch up in a couple of days.” He paused. “And once again, thank you.” He looked at Jack. “All of you.”
Rune gave him a nod. “Let’s find Reign a bed, then we’ll go.”
“I’ll take you over myself. Follow me.”
“I’ll get back to my office,” Bill said.
He looked better. Less sick, less…insane.
Before she knew she was about to, she stepped to Bill and pulled him into a hug. “You’re good now,” she whispered.
He tightened his arms around her. “I am my monster.” There was a smile in his voice.
“My monster is me,” she answered, and then, she let him go.
It seemed wrong, leaving little Reign in the cold, sterile Annex room. But the kid would never be alone. An Annex nurse would always be in the room, should she come to awareness.
“Touch her sometimes,” Rune told them, before she left. “She needs human contact.”
“We will,” one of the nurses replied. He was a slender man with bright red hair and kind green eyes. “We’ll take good care of her, honey.”
None of the ops ever called Rune “honey.” They were afraid of her, and some of them were disgusted by her. Some of them thought she was a cold-blooded killer, a monster. Call her honey? No.
She grinned and relaxed. “Thanks.”
He gave her a quick wink, then turned to tend to Reign, small and motionless in her hospital bed.
Jack waited in the hallway. “I didn’t want to walk away from her,” he told Rune, as they strode to Levi’s room. “Even though she wouldn’t have noticed.” He ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “There’s something about her that…I don’t know. She never had a chance, did she? No one loved her.”
Rune nodded, and wondered again about Jack’s early life. Had anyone loved him? “She’s never known anything but pain and darkness,” she said. “When a baby never has anyone to bond with or touch her…do you think they can come back from that, Jack?”
“She is destined to kill you and yours.”
She shivered as a breeze of bad omens caressed her spine.
Maybe Reign would never be anything other than a monster. Maybe she’d never do anything but kill. Maybe someday she’d go after Rune and Kader.
But maybe she wouldn’t.
Jack looked at her. “Yeah. Yeah, they can come back from that, Rune.”
And that told Rune more than she really wanted to know about Jack’s childhood.
Chapter Three
Before leaving the Annex, Rune went to see Levi.
“Tell him I’ll see him soon,” Jack said.
“Get some dinner, baby.”
“There’s a bottle of dinner in my immediate future,” he told her, and then, ignoring the long, admiring glances from the hospital staff, he strode down the hall.
She watched him go, her heart heavy.
“Rune!”
She turned as Ellis rushed toward her. He was smiling, and she relaxed immediately. If Ellie were smiling, Levi really was okay.
He wrapped his arms around her. “Come set your mind at ease, then get home to our baby.”
“Denim with him?” she asked as they walked to Levi’s room.
“Yes. He’ll leave with you.”
“What about you?”
“I’m staying with Levi.”
She paused outside Levi’s room, frowning. “He is all right, isn’t he?”
He blinked back tears. “I just want to spend every moment I can with him. Someday…” He shrugged. “You just never know about someday, do you?”
She ran her stare over his sad eyes, his twitchy hands, his slumped shoulders. “You don’t sing anymore,” she murmured. “Why don’t you sing anymore, Ellie?”
He didn’t look away. “Sometimes it just feels like there’s no more music in my heart.”
She gripped his shoulders, squeezing gently.
Too many bad things had happened. Not even Ellis could stay the same through all the horror.
The rest of them had come out of the womb with darkness in their hearts.
But not Ellis.
His light had always been the one constant, the thing that pushed back that darkness for all of them.
But his light was dimming.
He sniffed, then gave her a watery smile. “You’d think I’d get used to almost losing the ones I love.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Come say hello so you can get home to Kader.”
“There she is,” Levi said, when he spotted her. “Get me out of here, Rune.”
She kept her smile but her heart stuttered at the sight of his swollen face, cut lips, and bruises. Even without the injuries, he’d have looked ill. No matter how badass a man was, put him in a hospital gown and he became a weak, sickly little boy.
And that was after she’d fed from him.
It hadn’t been enough to completely heal him, but feeding him would be.
At least physically. Mentally, who knew?
He was only human.
She leaned over to kiss his bruised forehead. “Dude, you’re staying put until they release you.”
Ellis crossed his arms. “Exactly what I told him.”
“I’ll feed you,” she offered. “If that doesn’t get you over the hump, you’re in worse shape than I’m being told.”
Levi waved his hand at her. “No, no. Go home. I’m fine.”
Rune glanced at Denim. He’d been staring out the windows but turned to face her when she walked in.
“Denim.”
His face was drawn and nearly as pale as his twin’s, but bore none of the bruises, lumps, or cuts. He gave her a nod. “Roma called to check on Levi. She said to let you know Raze drove her home.”
She nodded, then squeezed Levi’s shoulder. “I’m here. I have news. Let me feed you, Levi, and we’ll convince the doctor to send you home to sleep in your own bed.”
He shook his head. “I’ll heal fine now, Rune, thanks to your bite.”
She shrugged. “All right.” She turned toward the door. “Coming, Denim?”
“Yeah.” He walked to the door. “See you tomorrow, brother.”
But Levi called her back. “What news, Rune?”
She hesitated. “It can wait until you feel better.”
He lifted an eyebrow, and Ellis smiled. “He won’t be able to relax unless you tell us,” Ellie said. “What is it, Rune?”
Maybe the baby would take his mind off whatever was bothering him. She kept waiting for his smile to reach his eyes, and it kept stopping short.
She frowned, then went back to Levi’s bedside.
Denim walked over to the small chair someone had placed on the other side of Levi’s bed, then sat down a little too casually. “Why would you want to keep this news from us? We’re Shiv Crew, not delicate children.”
There was anger beneath his words, anger he barely held at bay—and Rune knew he wasn’t angry at her. He was angry about Levi’s trauma. And that anger was born from terror. And deeper, beneath that anger, was fear of what she might be hiding from them.
And she could understand that.
“I wanted to wait until Levi felt better,” she said.
Ellis frowned. “I’m not in the loop either, apparently. Is this about the berserker?”
“No.” Rune sighed, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was so tired. “It’s about who he brought back with him.”
Denim stood so suddenly and violently that his chair crashed to the floor
. “Fuck me,” he whispered. “He’s brought Lex back.”
Levi’s face paled further and he shot a hand out to grab Rune’s arm. “Rune? He did?”
Ellis put his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide.
“Oh, God,” Rune whispered. “No. No, Strad didn’t bring Lex back.” She could barely look at the twins. Their hope broke her heart.
“What then?” Levi asked, his face a mask of pain.
“He brought back a kid.” She blinked back her tears.
“What kid?” Denim’s voice was flat and empty. Controlled.
“The little black-haired baby I’ve been searching for. The one I lost. You remember.”
No one spoke as they processed her words and absorbed their disappointment.
“He found her,” Levi said, finally. “I’ll be damned. He really found her.”
“Why would you keep that from us?” Denim asked, frowning, shoving the hope of Lex away.
If Rune could have, she’d have flown to Skyll, grabbed Lex by her hair, and dragged her back into the twins’ arms. But even if that had happened, they would never feel the same about the little blind Other. Her betrayal of them had been too profound.
Rune reached across the bed for Denim’s hand, and when he didn’t pull away, she squeezed his fingers. “Remember the tank babies? Remember…” She swallowed convulsively. “Remember when I had to take off my head to kill the twin children in the Annex?”
Levi’s eyes widened. “Shit,” he whispered. “She’s ours, just like they were.”
She nodded. “Spikemoss Mountain.”
His breath shook when he inhaled. “And she’s…normal? Not a monster?”
Rune opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she found the words. “Normal compared with the twin girls.” That was all she had.
The twins looked at each other, communicating silently. Not even Ellie was included in that moment.
At last, at the exact same time, they broke their connection and looked at Rune. “She’s not ours,” Denim said. “She’s the Shop’s invention. We don’t want her.”
Rune stepped back, stunned. “She’s an innocent, boys. And she’s part of us, whether we want her to be or not.”
“Rune,” Ellis said, his eyes a little too wide. “Damascus told you this child would someday kill you and yours. Yours means Kader.” He paused, then lifted his chin and met her stare. “And it means you. That child shouldn’t be here.”
“Ellis. Don’t say that shit. You know you don’t mean it.”
His lips trembled. “But I do. I do. That child is your enemy, not your baby, and she was built, not born. Kader is your baby, and you have to put her first.” His eyes did not waver.
She couldn’t think of a word to say.
The three men in front of her didn’t want the tiny, abused soul, no more than anyone else ever had.
Even Ellis had closed his heart to the child.
Ellis.
And that shattered her.
Reign was a reminder of everything bad that had ever happened to them. She was darkness, and pain, and fear. She was Damascus, and the Shop, and Spikemoss Mountain. She was cages and rape and helplessness.
And Rune understood. Because God help her, if she couldn’t get past that, she was nearly certain she wouldn’t want the child, either.
Chapter Four
The welcome scent of coffee brewing met her when she opened the door to her house. She took a deep breath and hurried to the kitchen, toward the sound of familiar voices and mingling scents of coffee and bacon.
Raze, busy transferring a huge pile of bacon from the skillet to a platter, grinned when she walked in. “Hungry?”
“Starving,” she said, and plucked Kader from her highchair. “Hi, baby girl.” She stood still, inhaling the baby’s perfect fragrance, forcing herself to relax.
Roma, Jack, and Aly sat around the table, waiting for their breakfast. Roma pushed her chair back and went to pour Rune a cup of coffee.
Aly stood and gave Kader’s cheek a pat. “I’ll stay until Ellis returns, if you want me.”
“Thanks, Aly.”
Grim rose lazily from the corner and Aly shied away, her lips tightening.
“Grim won’t hurt you,” Rune told her.
“That animal is terrifying.”
Roma snorted. “Kader wallows all over that dog.”
Aly lifted her chin. “Yes, and I really don’t approve.”
Kader pushed against Rune’s chest. “I want down.”
Rune gave her a kiss, then leaned over and set her on the floor. Kader proceeded to bury her chubby fingers in Grim’s fur, using him to pull herself to her feet.
“Grim,” she said. “Grim, okay.”
“That’s right,” Rune told her. “Grim.”
Raze carried two enormous platters on the table. “Sit. Eat. It’s not as good as Ellie’s, but it’ll fill you up.” Then he frowned. “If Roma doesn’t eat it all.”
Roma crammed a slice of bacon into her mouth, then began loading her plate with eggs. “I make no promises.”
Jack laughed.
“Get some while you can, Jack.” Rune said, grabbing a plate. “She’s not joking.” She was glad he hadn’t gone to his quiet apartment to drink himself into a stupor, but his eye was glassy and his fingers trembled.
If there was one of them little Reign could fix, it was Jack. He needed the child more than he realized. Rune had seen it when he’d carried her into the Annex.
He was about to become a daddy, and he didn’t even know it.
“Not even a little bit,” Roma agreed. “I can’t help myself.”
Rune sat beside Jack. “Eat,” she told him. “Please.”
Jack sighed and speared a bite of egg with exaggerated care. “I’m fine, Rune.” He chewed, then caressed his bottle before sliding it back into his pocket. “Did you tell the twins who Strad brought back with him?”
Raze leapt to his feet and gave a roar. “The fuck!”
Kader began to bawl, and at that moment, Rune’s cell rang.
She hit the speaker. “What?” she growled.
“Rune! What’s wrong? Why is Kader crying?”
“She’s fine, Ellie. What do you need?”
“I wanted to see if Denim made it back there. You left without him.”
“Not here yet. I’ll call you back.” She hung up, then stood and grabbed her squalling child. “Everybody calm the fuck down.”
Raze hadn’t made another sound, but he watched her, his fists clenched. Waiting. Hoping. “Rune,” he said, finally. “Lex?”
Roma, frowning, forgot to eat as she watched Raze.
Rune shook her head. “No. The baby the Shop took. The little black-haired baby I lost.”
His expression didn’t change. He sat back down, picked up his fork, and began to eat.
“Raze,” Rune said. “I’m sorry. Fucking Lex.”
He nodded.
Roma picked up a slice of bacon. “If I ever see her again, I will kill her.”
There was absolutely no doubt in her voice, and when Rune looked at her, she saw nothing but cold certainty in the girl’s eyes.
Rune shrugged. “We’re never seeing her again.” She kept her gaze on her plate so she wouldn’t accidentally see the huge effort Raze was making to remain calm. To look like he didn’t care.
Neither he nor the twins would have considered the idea had not the berserker himself returned—as had the assassin.
And where was the fucking berserker?
As though she’d conjured him, he opened the kitchen door and walked in. Immediately the space shrank as his spirit, his big body, and his berserker-ness took up so much of the room. There wasn’t enough air, and she put a hand to her chest when her lungs constricted.
His sharp, dark stare found hers, and for a few seconds, nothing and no one else existed. There was only his loose, long black hair, his muscles, his eyes.
His heart.
She stood. “Berserker.” Her voi
ce came out in a harsh croak, but she barely noticed.
He was there.
In her fucking house.
She wanted to keep her distance, and she wanted to fling herself into his arms.
“Who dis, mama, okay?”
Kader had never known a stranger. She tottered toward the huge man, and Rune saw the exact second the berserker registered the baby.
He staggered back, his eyes widening.
The little girl stood before him, staring up—way up—and Strad couldn’t take his stare off her. They stood in silence, the tiny black-haired, blue-eyed child and the enormous black-haired, blue-eyed man.
Rune began to shiver.
“Berserker,” she whispered. “No. She’s…”
“Mine,” he breathed. “She’s mine. Ours.” He tore his gaze away from the child to spear Rune with eyes that held too much emotion. Too much tentative hope. Too much of everything.
No one made a sound.
Finally, he leaned over and lifted the child into his arms. “Hello,” he murmured. Then he looked at Rune. “What did you name her?”
She swallowed. “Her name is Kader.”
He frowned, then nodded. “Hello, Kader. I’m your daddy.”
Rune had never felt more uncomfortable in her life. “I’m pretty sure…”
He looked at her. “What?”
“She’s Z’s, Strad.”
He stared at her, his head tilted, curiosity in his eyes. And finally, he grinned. “Sweetheart.” He kissed Kader’s forehead. “I abandoned you, so it’s understandable that you wouldn’t have wanted me to father the little one.” He shrugged, then glanced around the room. “I abandoned all of you. I won’t apologize for putting my son first, but I came to understand that his place was there. Mine wasn’t. Mine is here with my crew, my woman, and…” His entire face lit up when he looked at the baby in his arms. “My child. This is my world.”
Yeah, he was different.
She saw nothing of the twistedness Gunnar had proclaimed, but it was there. She didn’t have to see it. She felt it. Felt it like a vacuum hiding in a black hole, sucking all the air from the world. Yeah, it was there.