Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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𝗠atteo didn't let go of her hand once.
The rain had stopped along the way, the sun beginning to make its vapid appearance in the sky. It had been hours since the fighting began—long enough that a new day began to dawn over their shoulders, and for some reason, Rayne couldn't help but breathe in the aftermath of the weather, and feel as if things could only go up from here.
Her brother was at her side, and in a few minutes, so would her friends.
Matteo's fingers squeezed the back of her hand reassuringly as the white van came into view alongside the two people sitting and waiting for them. Rayne felt her heart lodge in her throat at the sight of her fiancé's platinum hair, and the way the wind delicately stroked it over his eyes. Her feelings simmered like she was a pot with a centimeter of water, and the thought of him left her with nothing more than the hot silverness and burning need.
"Rueben!"
She said his name like a love letter—like a declaration.
Her voice stole his attention.
The moment his jade eyes pulled from his sister and landed in the sights of her amber ones was the moment everything that had fallen was picked up and placed on their perfect shelves. Rayne tore her hand out of her brother's and sprinted across the small lot, crashing into Rueben's arms. He groaned in, what was probably pain, as the force of her motion sent him tumbling to the van floor.
"Rayne, oh my God," he breathed as she settled on top of him.
"This is real, right?" she asked as he pushed her hair behind her ears with both hands, "You're here, and I'm here, and all the fighting—it's all over?"
"It's real, my love—it's real."
Rueben's face blurred as she started to cry.
With his back pressed to the floor of the van and her legs on either side of his hips, she used their positions as an opportunity to check. Flattening her palms to the center of his abs, she pressed carefully, stifling her happy-sadness as she rolled the texture of her skin up his shirt, feeling his pecs, then his collarbones—reeling over the fact that the love of her life had dropped everything to rescue her, and he lived to tell the story.
But her exhilaration ended swiftly as she noticed the jagged wound on his neck.
Rueben huffed in agony as she touched her fingertips to the makeshift stitches, careful not to tug on the reddened skin. Her tears fell down in waves even a surfer couldn't hope to evade.
"What happened to you?"
"Carson," he admitted, "He got me after you ran from Niccolió."
"This is all my fault," she whimpered, still touching it, "If I hadn't been kidnapped—"
Rueben took her hand from his wound and turned it, palm facing him.
Rayne failed to keep her emotions hidden behind locked doors as Rueben gingerly kissed away the blood that stained her hands—as he kissed away the guilt she felt. He kissed the center of her hand, then moved and proceeded to do the same on the tip of each finger.
