“Careful, cher,” I said softly and bit my tongue to stop anything else from coming from my mouth.
Sia blinked at me, and then her gaze followed a path down my arm to the hand that was still holding her elbow. She swallowed, and I watched as her cheeks dusted to red. “Th-thank you, Hush.” She stared up at me with those big baby blues.
I pulled my hand back and thrust it into my pocket. Sia carried on walking until we reached the edge of the ring. We arrived just in time to see the final barrel racer sprint around the track. The bitch didn’t even get close to Sia’s time. When Sia saw her name at the top of the leaderboard, she smiled so fucking wide it almost blocked out the sun.
It was a strange feeling, pride. I never had much of a chance to feel proud of someone before. Cowboy took up for me every day. Would fight anyone that even looked badly at me. But that was just us. How we’d been for so long I never really noticed it anymore.
But right now, I was so full of fucking pride for this bitch who’d swooped into our lives like an eagle riding a hurricane that I couldn’t help but smile.
A second later, Sia’s hand came down on my wrist, and her mouth dropped open in shock. “Hush!” she said dramatically. I fixed my gaze on her. “You can smile!”
I nodded and ran my hand over my shaven head. “Rare, I know. But it happens once every blue moon.”
Sia nudged me with her shoulder. “It suits you, darlin’.” Her eyes dropped, and she kicked the dirt with the toe of her boot. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it a whole lot more.” She threw me a wink. One I knew she’d fucking picked up from Cowboy. “And, you know, you’re kinda hot, more so when you flash those pearly whites in this gal’s direction . . .” My eyes blazed, stomach fucking tightening.
The announcer called out that it was time for the saddle bronc riders. I glanced behind us and saw Cowboy approaching us alone, no sight of AK, Vike, and Flame. Cowboy was almost at where we were stood when someone brushed past him, did a double-take, and then stopped dead. My eyes narrowed, trying to gauge what was happening, when the guy in brown chaps said, “Aubin? Aubin Breaux? Is that you?”
Cowboy’s attention snapped to the guy to his right. The smile he was wearing slipped right off his face. The minute I saw who it was, I was overcome with rage so fucking hot it almost burned me where I stood. My hands shook so fast I actually fucking looked down at my fingers, before curling them into fists. My chest slammed up and down as I lifted my head back to the fucker that had dared fucking speak to Cowboy. I was gonna fucking explode. I was gonna fucking tear him to shreds. I was gonna—
“Hush?” Sia said, putting her hand on my arm. But I couldn’t respond. My heart pounded too fast in my chest as I watched Cowboy recognize the man standing before him. Cowboy’s face flamed as if the devil himself had possessed his body.
Cowboy shot a brief glance my way. I blinked, my narrowed eyes moving to the tattoos peeking out from under the cunt’s collar, his sleeves . . . Tattoos I would recognize anywhere.
I fucking knew it. Knew they’d have gone down that road eventually.
“Fuck, man, where the hell have you been?” Pierre said, speaking like all that shit hadn’t gone down years ago. I told myself to fucking move. I told my fucking legs to run and smash the prick’s nose across his face, but nothing was working. Pure anger stopped anything on my body from fucking working. “You’re in Texas? This is where you disappeared to? I know a lot of shit went down a while back, but we never thought you’d leave town.” Pierre frowned. “Your folks have been looking for you for years.” Cowboy’s mouth opened to say something, but Pierre looked over his shoulder and signaled to someone.
I felt like I was watching a slow-motion movie as a face I never wanted to see again came strutting through the crowd. Cowboy turned. Jase Du Pont stopped as his eyes fell on Cowboy. Then he rushed through the crowd.
Him. That motherfucking cunt.
My body vibrated. I felt Sia’s hand press down harder on my arm, but I couldn’t fucking hear anything she was saying. All I could hear was the blood surging through my ears. All I could see was the fucking red mist descending over my eyes as the mark on my back ignited with fire.
“Aubin?” Jase ran over and took hold of Cowboy’s arm. “Fucking Aubin Breaux!”
Cowboy didn’t reply. Instead his eyes met mine. I knew if I could see clearly, they’d be silently telling me to calm the fuck down. But how could I when these assholes were here? In my fucking home!
“You here competing?” Jase asked, clearly not understanding that Cowboy’s silence meant he was one second from slitting his fucking throat. Because there was no way Cowboy wasn’t close to snapping. He hated these cunts almost as much as I did. “I’m here with my nephew. Just starting out on the youth circuit.” He turned his nose up. “Bit of a shithole competition for you, isn’t it? This what you’re reduced to now? Shitty rodeos in Texas. You were a fucking king of the rodeo once. Better than all of us.”
My blood boiled as I glared at the dark-haired, freckle-skinned prick. My foot moved forward, pure hatred spurring me on. “Hush?” Sia stepped in front of me. But I kept my eyes on him. The one I intended to fucking kill. “What’s wrong? Do you know those men?” Sia’s voice was panicked.
“What the fuck are you doing in Texas, Breaux? And please tell me you no longer have anything to do with that fucking mongrel, right? Fucking bastard ruined your chance at going pro and brainwashed you. Fucking took you away from us, the manipulative cunt. Just like one of them to fuck up a good man’s life.” Jase spat on the floor. Sia sucked in a sharp breath, her head whipping to Jase. Her nails dug into the flesh on my arm. I welcomed the fucking pain it caused. It spurred me the fuck on.
Cowboy’s eyes had slammed to me the minute the asshole’s slur was ejected from his stupid fucking mouth. Jase, trying to see what had caught his old buddy’s attention, swung around . . . and his gaze collided with mine.
My face was stone, my cold eyes locked on his so tightly that I could see a dribble of chewing tobacco escape his mouth at my presence. He spat on the ground again . . . the brown liquid hitting the toe of my boot. “You have to be fucking kidding me!”
He pulled on Cowboy’s arm. But before he could throw another racial slur my way, Cowboy raised his fist, and just like he did back in Louisiana when we were teens, smacked the fucker right in his face. Jase fell to the ground, jumping back up when a bunch of his buddies came running over. Brushing Sia’s hand from my arm, I ran over, breath echoing in my ears, to where he stood. Jase rounded on me the minute I arrived. “You fucking half-breed bastard!” he hissed, then lurched for me. I smashed my fist into his face. Over and over again, letting the bone crack and the flesh split under my knuckles. I fucking unleashed hell, the cunt’s tattoos driving my fucking rage. The mark on my back my fucking fuel.
Only a few seconds later, I heard, “Well, well, what the fuck do we have here, ladies?” Viking’s booming voice carried over the motherfuckers I was gonna take down. For everything they’d done. For those nights they came for me. For that one fucking night they—
“What’s this? Another mongrel lover? You like the white-and-black pollution too, huh?” Jase had barely stopped speaking, stumbling away from me, blood drowning his fucking ugly face, when Flame jumped forward and knocked the fucker out.
“No!” I screamed, about to throw Flame out of the way when AK yanked on my shirt. Blood dripped from my lip from where a stray punch had landed on my mouth.
“Get her the fuck home,” AK said. I fought to get free from his hold, needing to get to Jase. Needing to finish what he’d started long ago. Needing that fucker to feel what he had made me feel time after time after time, until the night when I went to hell and never fucking came back.
But AK held tight to me, grabbing my throat until I couldn’t fucking breathe. Viking dragged Cowboy away too, Flame taking his place slamming his fists into the racist bastards.
“I mean it! Get her the fuck home now! Last thing we need is to
draw a fucking crowd.” AK pushed us away and toward Sia. Cowboy kept looking back at the dicks he’d grown up with, his “rodeo buddies.”
I only saw them as dead men walking. I wanted to go back. Needed to fucking end them all . . . I turned to see AK glaring at me. Flame and Viking were walking away from the mostly beaten men, a crowd beginning to form around those on the floor. These fuckers were like kings at these things. I didn’t care. I couldn’t give a shit what happened to me. I pulled my knife from my boot, then—
“Cowboy! Hush!” Sia cried out, stopping me dead. I turned to see her still standing, face ghost-white, against the fence. My hand tightened on the handle of my knife. I saw Jase’s eyes slam to mine through the crowd. Then the fucker smiled, and I—
“We need to go,” Cowboy said, moving into my path. I was panting, fucking breathing all over the fucking place as I just let my anger control me, giving Hades himself permission to fucking take these assholes down once and for all. “Val!” Cowboy spat, face red. “We need to fucking go!” Cowboy’s eyes fell to someone behind me. I followed his gaze, and saw Sia . . . fucking scared to all hell. Eyes wide as she watched me, knife in hand. “Don’t let her see this shit,” Cowboy said just for my ears.
My body shook from my toes to my head. Throwing my head back, I screamed out my frustration, the sound sailing over the small rodeo ground. Closing my eyes, I took a long breath, then put my knife in my belt. I turned to Sia and took hold of her hand, pulling her behind us. I started running. Cowboy took her other hand, and we pushed through the waiting competitors. Cowboy slid into the truck. He opened the window as me and Sia climbed inside, and shouted to Clara, who was waiting by the trailer. “Drive the horse back to the ranch. We’re leaving.”
Clara looked confused but did as he said. Cowboy gunned out of the competitors’ parking lot. He pulled out onto the road and started heading for the ranch. My leg slammed up and down. My blood was rushing through my veins at the speed of fucking light. I couldn’t calm down. I just kept seeing those cunts in my head. All the shit they’d done . . . their fucking tattoos.
Their motherfucking white power tattoos.
“What the hell happened?” Sia asked, clearly shaken up if her voice was anything to go by. Her hand was trembling as she put it to my face. I snapped my head back and watched her eyes fill with tears. “Hush . . . the things they said to you . . .” She tried to take my hand, but I pulled away. She couldn’t right now. I was losing my shit. I needed to calm down. But the minute I thought of that asshole calling me a fucking mongrel, a fucking half-breed, everything I had fought so hard to try to put behind me came rushing to the surface.
It was like I was sixteen again. The fucking target they messed and toyed with for fucking fun until it had ruined my motherfucking life.
“Calm down, Val,” Cowboy ordered from the driver’s seat. My eyes shot to him, and all I could think of were the times when he would be with them. Laughing at me, watching them punch me to the ground.
Turning to Sia, I hissed, “Ask Cowboy who they were.”
The cab was silent. Only broken when Cowboy warned, “Don’t. Don’t fucking do this, Val.”
But I couldn’t stop. I knew what he had done for me. I knew he walked away from all that shit back there and chose me. Fuck, he left his parents after it all happened . . . when I lost them . . . when I fucking fell apart . . . but I couldn’t calm down. All I could see were their white-power tattoos; all I could hear were the fucking racist slurs that fell out of their mouths as easily as breathing. Them, living in their rich-ass mansions, riding their horses, strutting around town like they were motherfucking gods. While we struggled and scrimped, until . . . until—
Cowboy stopped the truck out front of Sia’s house. I slammed out of the door, ignoring the dizziness I was beginning to feel. I moved right then left, unsure how to get these fucking feelings of rage from my head. “Hush.” I saw Sia, hands over her mouth, watching me from the side of the truck.
Cowboy approached me. “Val. I’m fucking serious. Calm down. You’re losing it. It’s fucking dangerous!” Cowboy lurched for me and began dragging me into the house. I heard Sia running behind us.
“Cowboy! Stop! You’ll hurt him!”
But Cowboy didn’t stop until he put my ass down on the couch. It was the only time I ever saw him this serious. When I got like this. His hands pressed down on my shoulders. “Calm, brother. Please . . . just calm the fuck down.” I saw him flick a worried glance to Sia, who was watching, face pale and bewildered, from the door. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t fucking sit still. I threw his hands away and got to my feet.
Cowboy tried to come for me, but I pushed my hand out. Dizziness this time made me reach out for something to stop me from falling. I tasted that familiar metallic taste in my mouth. I turned to see Cowboy moving for me, Sia crying . . . but my eyes rolled back, then it all went black.
*****
“Cowboy! Please, let me get a doctor!” A thick fog clouded my head, a storm raging in my mind as the sound of voices drifted into my ears.
“No, cher,” Cowboy’s voice replied. “He don’t need one.”
I slipped away again. The next time I returned, the sounds in the room were stronger. My eyes felt heavy as I tried to open them. My arms and legs felt like ten-ton weights.
“Val?” Hands moved to my face. “Val, I’m here.” I recognized Cowboy’s voice. I breathed and breathed until the weights in my eyes lessened enough for me to open my eyelids. My vision was blurred at first, but then everything started to clear.
“Val?” Cowboy’s face came into view. I blinked in the room, my head spaced and my body exhausted. I was lying on my side, a pillow under my head. Cowboy was his on knees. His hand was on my head. “Hey, mon frère,” he said, and I took a deep breath. I squinted my eyes, trying to remember what the hell had happened.
I couldn’t remember. Everything was lost to the thick fog I couldn’t clear from my head. I tried to move, but my arms were too weak. My mouth was dry. I licked my tongue out along my lips, and then I heard her.
“Here.” Footsteps came near me and someone lowered themselves to the floor. Jeans were the first thing I saw . . . then I felt a hand press against my cheek. It was trembling. I looked up and saw a beautiful face staring down at me.
Elysia, a break in my mind told me.
Sia.
“Hey, darlin’,” she whispered and ran her fingertips along my cheek. They were shaking. Something in my chest cracked when tears began falling from her eyes.
“He’s good, cher,” Cowboy said. Sia’s eyes squeezed closed. Her breathing hitched, punching a hole into my damn heart. Cowboy’s hand came down on her shoulder. “He’ll be thirsty. He always is afterwards.”
Sia opened her eyes and pulled herself together. Nodding, she shuffled closer to me and placed her hand under my head. I wanted to do it myself, but I had no fucking energy to move. “I . . . I . . .” She looked up at Cowboy.
“He’s not hurt, cher. Just tired. You won’t hurt him by lifting his head.” I listened to Cowboy instruct Sia as though I were watching from a distance. Not present enough to speak or help myself or fucking do anything but let her soft hands touch my skin, the warmth from her palm taking away the coldness that had blanketed my body.
Sia shuffled closer still. She lifted my head from the pillow and onto her lap. I exhaled a long breath, feeling her body heat act as a fire to the muscles and bones that were beginning to ache. My body was shaking. The aftermath of what I now realized was a seizure.
My consciousness began to clear, second by second bringing me back to the here and now. My eyes rolled to look up at Sia, who had simply been stroking my head for a few minutes. When my eyes connected with hers, she gave me a watery smile, then, fucking stealing every ounce of breath I held within my lungs, lowered her head and pressed her lips against mine.
Everything inside me told me to push her away, to move and refuse her help. But I didn’t move. I didn’t even try. I
was so fucking tired of running from everyone who tried to know me better . . . I was so fucking tired, period. So I just closed my eyes and let her comfort me. Let the hands I had wanted on me for too long run down my cheeks. And let the lips I had wanted on mine press all over my skin—the color of which was so different to hers.
And I let myself accept that she now knew. She knew what I hid. What should stop me from riding. “Drink, baby,” she said softly. My eyes opened to focus on her face. Sia tilted my head up. She brought the glass to my lips, and I sighed, feeling the cold liquid run down my dry throat. I never moved my eyes from Sia’s. Her lips shook as she helped me drink. When she lowered the glass, I looked over her shoulder to see Cowboy standing against the wall, watching. His arms were crossed over his chest. I couldn’t read his face. But I thought he looked . . . relieved?
“That better, darlin’?” Sia asked. I couldn’t find the strength to speak, but I could finally move my head a fraction. I nodded.
“Let’s get you on the couch,” Cowboy said. My best friend came and lifted me off the floor. This wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d lost count of how many times Cowboy had had to do this over the years. It was why I couldn’t ever fucking let him go.
Why he never walked away.
He moved me to the couch next to the fire. He knew I got cold afterward. Cowboy pulled a blanket over me and turned to start the fire. Sia had beaten him to it. I watched her, numbly, as she piled the logs in the open hearth. I flinched when the fire began to rise, the orange-and-red flames licking at the logs, crackling as they attacked the bark. Cowboy slipped to sit beside me. His hand went to my shoulder and squeezed. I didn’t look at him. Too busy fucking battling the lump in my throat and the memories I had no energy to fight.
My eyes lost focus in the flames, and like they did every time, voices began screaming in my mind . . . loud, agonized screams . . .