Page 18

18

Griffin

I dreamt of the fire that night.

I hadn’t had nightmares of it in a long time, but they came back with a vengeance until I’d thought I was burning up all over again. I’d struggled so hard to get Tasha out of that building, and I’d had to fight not to howl in pain as I’d put myself between her and the flames.

She’d had problems with smoke inhalation.

I’d ended up like this.

Even the skin grafts could only go so far, and I was ruined. The media loved it for a little while, being able to talk about the celebrity who’d risked his life for an intern. But then when the novelty had faded, there was only this broken, scarred man where a vivacious, engaging singer had been.

I woke from my own screams, sweat beading up on my forehead, and I kicked off the blankets as I fought to calm myself down.

Breathe, Griffin, breathe .

I just had to fucking breathe. It shouldn’t have been that hard, but all I could remember was the stench of burning flesh, the feeling of that searing heat, the utter terror that we weren’t going to make it out on time…

But she was okay, and I was alive, and I had to at least be grateful for that… Didn’t I?

I let out a choked, bitter laugh.

Go die in a fire , he’d nearly told me, the words more of a slap in the face than even he had been willing to go. At least he had something of a conscience in there. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure what I’d have done. It wouldn’t have been pretty, and it wouldn’t have been pleasant, and it would’ve really cast me in the role of the beast in this particular drama.

I shook my head, trying to shake it off, but the shrill screams lingered in my ears and the stench of smoke filled up my nostrils. I couldn’t get away from it, not even in my own mind, and I hated him in that moment for having brought this to the surface.

No matter what I’d done to him…

What? I challenged myself. You think he gives a fuck about you? You think he ever will?

He had to. If he didn’t, this whole thing would be for nothing. Then what?

That was the ominous part of all of this. If I failed — if I couldn’t get him trained — what was I going to do? It wasn’t like I could take him to the local animal shelter. There would be ways to get rid of him, but he didn’t deserve to disappear into the slave trade. I hadn’t wanted that for him. I’d wanted a comfortable but disciplined life for him here.

I swung my legs off the side of the bed and plodded into the bathroom. I was glad the mirrors were covered and I didn’t have to see my own reflection. If I had… I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done. Smashed it to bits, probably, because I felt wild and out of control.

I didn’t dare go downstairs, not like this, not when Toby — Ryder — had dealt me such a critical blow. He’d known he’d gotten to me, and the only thing that had given me hope was that he hadn’t taunted me with it like I’d expected.

What reason did he have to care about how I felt? He hadn’t hesitated to call me a scarred psychopath before. He had to have seen something before I’d shut down mentally, which meant I was fucking slipping. Goddamnit. I couldn’t have him poking at that particular wound. It might’ve been scabbed over, but it was still too new to take much prodding.

It would always be too new.

I ran the water in the sink, splashing my face with cold water until I started to feel like my body temperature was back to normal. It took longer than I’d have thought, but then, this was the first truly bad nightmare I’d had in a long time.

I wished I had my pup upstairs to cuddle with instead of the snapping, snarling beast in the basement I was stuck with — for now.

We’d made progress, but it wasn’t enough. If I went downstairs and asked for a hug, he’d never stop mocking me. He didn’t need to know how much I needed the comfort of a companion, and I wasn’t sure if he would ever understand that a real dog couldn’t take the place of a person.

Instead, I returned to bed, grabbing the full body pillow and hugging it tight to my chest before wrapping my legs around it too. It was no substitute for a human body, but it had been so long since anyone had willingly touched me. I was desperate for contact, desperate for someone to touch me instead of recoiling from me, and every day I went without it… I felt like I died a little more inside.

After all, what kind of monster did I have to be to have done this to someone? I’d never have done this to anyone before the accident. I wouldn’t have even dreamed of it .

And yet.

Here we were.

Here I was.

I dreamt of his screams then, of him begging me to get him out of the fire. I tried to wake, but my own mind cruelly kept me asleep — perhaps as penance for what I was doing, a manifestation of my own guilt in a way that even I could understand. The rest of the night was filled with screams and terror, and all I could think about was Toby.

How had he gotten so deep inside of my brain?

The sword obviously cut both ways…

I watched him eat in silence, without my usual interest. Usually it got me hard to watch him struggle with the food and water bowls, but today it fell flat.

He glanced at me after every few bites, his gaze darting to my face then back down to the bowls.

I ran a hand through my hair, all too aware that I looked like shit after my night. I hadn’t wanted him to see me like this, but it wasn’t like I could do much to hide it. As much as his words had hurt, I couldn’t justify holding food back from him, which meant the visit downstairs had been necessary.

I knew it made me vulnerable, and after the eighth or ninth time he looked up at me, I finally snapped, “What? Just stare if you want. You know you want to fucking look so you can make more little snide comments.”

Well, fuck.

He recoiled, looking stunned.

I hadn’t meant to speak, hadn’t meant to let him know just how much my sanity was crumbling under the constant reminders of the accidents. It wasn’t even the burns, not really. It was the memory of how close I’d come to death. It was the fact that nightmares plagued me so often. It was the knowledge that my entire life had gone down the drain because people put so much stock in physical beauty.

Here he was, gorgeous and tempting and perfect, and all I wanted to do was touch him and have him touch me in turn. But he was never going to forgive me for any of this, was he?

I clung to the fact that he’d actually apologized for the comment he’d started to make, hoping it meant we were starting to turn a corner. So help me, we had to be turning a corner. I couldn’t keep doing this much longer, not with him hating me so much.

“That’s not… I’m not…”

I leveled my glare on him, and he paled more.

“I’m sorry. For what I said,” he said, looking back down at the floor. “I didn’t mean to…”

“To do what?” I challenged him, belligerent and angry from the hurt.

“I was wrong,” he blurted out. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. About how you look. You saved that girl’s life, and it was all sorts of fucked, the way you got chased out.”

The words stunned me, and I stared at him, unable to speak around the lump in my throat. Did he really mean it? Could he? Was it even possible for him to care that his words had been hurtful?

“But what you’re doing is wrong,” he continued.

I flinched.

“It’s too late,” I told him, my voice rough. “You know it’s too late for me to do anything else.”

“Yeah.” He let out a choked little laugh, leaning back before plopping his bare ass onto the concrete .

“Don’t sit there,” I instantly told him. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

He snorted. “Someone might almost think you give a fuck.”

“I do,” I said. “I keep trying to tell you. I don’t want this to be miserable for you. Training is just… hard.”

“I don’t get it, man,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if I was encouraged by the conversation or not. “You’re still rich as fuck, right? Why couldn’t you have just… found someone who wants to be here?”

I laughed, bitter and harsh, and gestured to my face. “Do you really need to ask that question?”

“Yeah, but… People are superficial.” He didn’t look at me when he said it. “They probably wouldn’t care if you waved a lot of money around.”

“You’re right,” I told him. “That’s the problem. They wouldn’t care.”

He fell silent, but he got up, moving to the dog bed and sitting back down. “Why me?” he asked, finally getting around to the question I’d been waiting for.

“It wasn’t you in particular,” I said. “I asked for someone like you. Just… the luck of the draw, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he drawled. “I’m so fucking lucky.”

I sighed. There had been a moment in there when I’d felt like I’d been making progress, but we had gone and broken it. Now here we were, back to this, and the pang felt sharper than ever. The loneliness was eating away at me, and seeing him there — so close, yet so far — only made it worse.

“It’s time for exercise,” I said instead of trying to continue the conversation. I headed back to the boxes, digging out the knee pads I’d bought. I’d tried to think of everything, just for him… or someone like him, who was equally scared and angry.

He eyed the pads, shaking his head. “I don’t get you,” he said. “You’re like… this kinda nice guy, then you go and do all this pervy stuff.”

“Join the club,” I muttered. I didn’t understand it either. All I knew was that… “I want a companion,” I said abruptly. “Not a slave. I don’t want you to hate me. I want…”

“You want what you can’t have,” he said as I trailed off.

I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t have much choice but to try. The alternatives aren’t any better.” I met his eyes. “I could leave you down here and just keep you fed and give you water for the rest of your life. I could sell you into the trade that snatched you up.”

He shuddered, shaking his head quickly.

“This is the least of the evils,” I said softly. “You’ll understand that eventually.”

“Yeah, well. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“No,” I agreed. “And it doesn’t mean I have to like that you aren’t here by choice, either. But these are the cards we’ve been dealt, and all we can do is play them.”