Page 71 of Blood Ties
I need to find a way to get Kai back before I lose him entirely. Because my entire survival depends on him. But also... also because I feel bad for the way I reacted. I don’t know exactly what happened with those girls the other day, but whatever he did, it was Knox’s fault, not his. It must have left him hurt and vulnerable.
And... I miss him. Our quiet nights together, the way he looked at me, the way he smiled when he made a breakthrough in our lessons. Every time I try to read to distract myself, it reminds me of him.
Finally, one night, the door creaks open. The smell of hot food reaches me before Kai does. I’m salivating as he sets the plate of bacon and eggs in front of me, my hands shaky with hunger. Yet instead of grabbing the meal like I desperately want to, I reach for him. But he pulls away, avoiding my gaze.
“Kai,” I whisper. “Talk to me.”
He stares down at the floor. “What’s there to say?”
I crawl to the edge of the mattress, on my knees, ignoring the plate of food even as my stomach rumbles with need. “I’m sorry about what I said before,” I say, desperate to find the right words that will stop him from slipping between my fingers and disappearing forever. “I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone—”
“But I did,” he says, and I stop talking. He slowly lifts his gaze to mine. “Because of... for you I had to—” He stops, sucks in a shaky breath.
“Kai,” I whisper, reaching for him again, but he’s beyond the reach of my shackled wrist.
“I had to,” he says again, louder, almost yelling, and I flinch back. But then I look up at him — trembling, eyes wet — and realize the emotion that’s cracking his voice isn’t anger. It’s guilt.
“Oh, Kai,” I breathe.
He drops to the concrete, so fast and sudden that his knees crack against it. Long hair conceals him as he bows his head and lets out a wordless sound of pain.
“No,” he says, his voice breaking. “It was my fault. It was all my fault. All of this is my fault.” His fingers tear at his own hair, his spine bending as though under some great weight. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I’m sorry, Riley, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
Instinct drives me toward him instead of away. I strain to the end of my chain to reach for him — but I can’t quite touch him, can’t wrap my arms around him like I want to. My manacled hand reaches out uselessly between us.
“Kai,” I whisper.
His shoulders shake, and he bites down on one knuckle to muffle a sob. He doesn’t even look up to see me reaching for him. He’s far away, deep in his own head.
I don’t have to read his thoughts to suspect what’s going on there. Just like I didn’t have to see what happened to know that Knox somehow twisted this mess into Kai’s responsibility. Just another fucked-up, manipulative game of his. A way of pulling Kai away from me and toward him, trapping him with the family he deserves to escape.
If I don’t reach him somehow, I’ll lose him.
“You aren’t like them,” I tell Kai, desperate. “I don’t care what you did, you’renot.”
He finally lifts his head, face streaked with tears as he looks at me. “I’m a murderer,” he says. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re not!” I strain against my shackles so hard that it hurts, my fingers grasping at nothing, mere inches from the man I so desperately want to touch. He just stares at me. No — he stares through me. “Kai, please.” I suck in a shaky breath. My heart is pounding. Even though he’s just inches away from me, it feels like he’s drifting further, tumbling into some dark abyss where I’ll never be able to find him. “You aren’t like them. I know you. You are kind and gentle and smart. You are better than this. Youdeservebetter. You deserve to be loved. And I—” I stop, breath shuddering, as I realize what I have to say. “I do.”
My words finally seem to reach him. He blinks, focuses on me, searching my face. “What?”
I meet his gaze without hesitation. “I love you.”
Kai stares at me. He shuffles toward me, still on his knees. There’s something agonized in his expression. Something desperate. “Say it again,” he says, his voice hoarse.
“I love you.” I reach for him, tangle my fingers in his silky hair.
“Riley,” he groans, climbing onto the edge of the mattress.
I wrap my arms around his neck. “I love you, Kai.”
He kisses me, and I kiss back. Eager, tender, desperate, until I’m not sure whose tears I’m tasting. I whisper it again and again, that heavy word —love— until I’m not sure whether or not I’m lying to him.
I kiss his nose, his jaw, his neck. I take his hand and kiss his knuckles. When I flip it to kiss his palm, the sight of raw, red skin makes my chest seize. “Kai...”
“I’m sorry,” he says, for the millionth time. He tries to pull away, but I press my lips ever so gently to the fresh burn.
“I love you,” I tell him again. “All of you.” I shift closer, reaching for his shirt. “So... let me see all of you.”
