Page 1 of Love Thy Brother
1
RIVER
Seventeen months ago
I expected the bed to be too small for him. In my head, he was the biggest dude who’d ever lived. Sometimes I forgot he’d started off just a boy, like the rest of us. It had been a long time since either of us had been a child, and these days, trust me, RubiHummingbirdMatherson was all fucking man.
He was all heart too. That’s why it hurt so much to see him like this, hunched on a hospital bed, face hidden in his arms, every tendon rigid. A certified mess because of the bullshit life we’d been born into.
Fuck the Rebel Kings.
Fuck them to hell and back.
Unless they were already there. Looking at Rubi, at Cam’s face when he’d left him here, even Saint’s as he’d protected them, it wasn’t hard to imagine.
Skylar came up behind me, the Vans on his feet keeping his footsteps quiet.
I kept my gaze on Rubi. “What drugs did you give him?”
Skylar spared me a complex frown. He hated this as much as I did, but for different reasons. “Good ones. He’ll be asleep for a while.”
“How long’s a while? He’s been out three hours already.”
“Depends on his tolerance. He’s a big dude, but Cam told me he’s a lightweight with everything except weed.”
“All night then?”
Skylar shrugged, humouring me, and I leaned harder on Rubi’s bed, scrubbing a hand down my face.
“You can sit down, you know.” Skylar nudged a chair towards me. “You won’t miss anything.”
I already missed Rubi, and I had no right to.Hehad no right to make me feel it. It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t live through another tortured groan tearing from his chest. Another glimpse at his face so stricken and broken. I’d survived a lot of shit, but I’d never seen someone I cared about in so much physical pain. Someone Iloved.
And fucking hell, I loved this arsehole more than anything.
Ignoring Skylar and his chair, I leaned over the bed and rubbed Rubi’s tattooed forearm, ignoring the years-old rush that rocked me from that simple touch alone—
“I need you, Riv. Come home with me, please?”
I’d never know if he’d meant where we’d ended up—naked in my Porth Luck bed. Or if the spine-tingling dreams I’d had since had any bearing on reality.Shouldn’t have banged a gram of ket up your nose.
Story of my life. And now it was his too, as much as he wanted it to be. And given that I hadn’t seen him since, that he’d goddamn-fuckingleftme, I guessed it wasn’t all that much.
I tried not to care, but a grief-addled shudder rocked me all the same, suppressed only by an entire fucking adulthood of practice.Yearsspent knowing it didn’t matter how crazy our physical connection was or how much I loved him.
We were doomed.
Cursed.
Forbidden.
Because he loved the club that had obliterated my entire family more than he loved me.
Leave.
God, I wanted to. But as I gazed down at him, the will to walk away... it was non-existent. I couldn’t do it. Besides, I’d promised Cam I’d stay, and however much I hated my big brother and everything he stood for, I never lied to him. Not about anything. “Not even you, boo.”
The term of endearment slipped out too easily. I whispered the words as I eased Rubi’s arm from his perfect fucking face, revealing high cheekbones and a chiselled jaw thick with dark blond scruff. “Where’s his nose ring?”
