Air Ryder (Harper's Mountains Book 3) (11 page)

Ryder’s phone dinged again, and he cursed himself for not setting it to silent before he fell asleep. It was going to wake up Lexi, and he would straight up rip the prick a new asshole if that happened.

Ding.

Lexi tensed against his chest and made a soft sleep sound. Mother fucker. Carefully, Ryder slid his arm out from under her and rushed to turn the phone to vibrate before it chirped again. He gave zero shits about whoever was texting him right now. If it was important, his crew would’ve just come over and banged on the door trailer-park style.

An unknown number flashed across the glowing screen, along with the first few words of the message.
Hey Ryder, member me?

Rubbing his eyes to protect them from the bright screen, Ryder sat up on the edge of the bed and opened the message.

Hey Ryder, member me? It’s been a long time, but I’m wanting to get to know my boy now. I’m ready. I’ve missed too much.

Horror filled Ryder’s chest as he scrolled down and read the next message.

This is your dad.

And the next.

I mean your real dad because that fuckin’ boar don’t have any of his blood in you.

And the next.

I want to see you. They prolly turned you against me, but I don’t have much time left. Give me a chance to say my apologies and make up for what I done before I leave this world.

The phone felt like a hot coal in his hand so Ryder dropped it as fast as he could. He wanted to retch. How had Robbie even found his number?

“Fuck,” Ryder murmured in shock, running his shaky hands through his hair.

The room was spinning as flashback after flashback pummeled his mind. There was so much he hadn’t told Mom about the time he’d spent alone with Robbie. So much Ryder had protected her from, and now the damn devil himself was back for what? Forgiveness.

Fuck that shit.

He couldn’t breathe. His throat was tightening, and he would suffocate alone here in the dark. Clutching at his chest, Ryder looked around the room in desperation. Where the fuck was he? This wasn’t his cabin.

“Babe?”

A hand touched his back, and Ryder flinched away.

“Ryder, what’s wrong?”

“Ten-ten,” he murmured. He was in 1010 with Lexi. That was her pretty voice full of concern. He was okay. He just needed to breathe.
Breathe, breathe, breathe. She can’t see you like this. Keep her.

He blew out a shaky breath and forced his shoulders to relax. It was all for show. His insides felt like he’d just ripped the pin out of a grenade and swallowed it.
Keep her.

Lexi’s hands were on him now, rubbing up his shoulders, trying to soothe him, but it wouldn’t fix the crack in his soul. The deep, dark one that he’d patched up with a single strip of duct tape so he could appear to be normal on the outside.

Fuckin’ Robbie.

Keep her.

“It was a bad dream.” His voice came out too low, too gravelly, too panicked. He cleared his throat. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

What did he want from Ryder? To fuck up the next thirty years of his life? He’d just gotten Lexi, and now Robbie was going to fuck it up.
Not if you don’t let him.

The ghost-sound of a resounding slap echoed through the room.
You fuckin’ little freak!

Ryder closed his eyes against the vitriol in Robbie’s voice.

Desperate to escape his head, Ryder rounded on Lexi. He shouldn’t do this. Shouldn’t. He should let her go back to sleep so Robbie’s evil reach didn’t touch her through Ryder, but he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted out of his head, and Lexi could make it all better.

Ryder pulled her close and covered her mouth with his. When he plunged his tongue deeply into her mouth, she gasped.
Keep her.

But then she gave him salvation. She didn’t push him away and tell him to get his shit together. Lexi—his Lexi—slid her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. And as if she knew what he needed, she straddled his hips and rocked against his half-mast erection. That did it. He hardened by the second, and she was already wet. She would be so fuckin’ tight right now because he wasn’t taking the time to prepare her, but fuck it. He needed her wrapped around his dick now. He needed to lose his mind.

Ryder flipped her over onto her hands and knees and gripped her hips as he pushed into her. Stroke one, and the tension was already easing from his shoulders. She cried out as he pushed into her again, and as he froze, thinking he’d hurt her, she gasped out, “Harder!”

Fuck, she was saving him, and she didn’t even know it.

Ryder reared back and thrust into her again, buried himself balls deep inside her. He didn’t stop but pummeled her until she was screaming his name, touching herself, rubbing her own clit. His balls clenched as he yelled out and shot his load into her. He wanted every creamy drop he had to give inside of Lexi right now. He wanted her messy. He wanted it running down her thighs and pooling on the bed sheets. He wanted her to smell like him, salty and rutting.

Lexi came hard, clenching his dick in quick, pulsing release as she moaned over and over. Good mate, knowing what he needed.

Like she had no bones at all, Lexi fell forward on her elbows, chest heaving and ass up in the air. So fucking sexy, but he shouldn’t have done this. Not as a reaction to Robbie. She deserved better.

With a slick sound, Ryder pulled his dick out of her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. Fuckin’ failure.

“What for?” she asked, confusion tainting her pretty voice.

Ryder grabbed his cell phone from where he’d dropped it, snatched his jeans off the floor, and bolted out of the bedroom.

“Ryder!” Lexi called. Her bare footsteps sounded hollowly on the floorboards behind him, but she wasn’t fast like him. She wasn’t a freak like him.

He bolted for the woods and then hid in the shadows. He hated himself as he watched her cry on the front porch. He wanted to rip his hair out and scream as the flashbacks pummeled him again. Robbie was supposed to care for him more than anyone in the world, but he’d broken him instead. Not just once or twice, but systematically for years. Pain made up his first memory. Fucking Robbie and fucking shifter healing that allowed that prick to hurt him as much as he wanted.

He should’ve told mom. She would’ve killed him, and then Robbie wouldn’t be scratching at the locked safe of nightmare memories. Or he should’ve told Mason. Mason would’ve split Robbie from dick to throat and pissed on his intestines, but abuse didn’t work like that. The physical part hurt, but the mental part was even worse. Abusers knew how to make their victims think the pain was their own goddamned fault. If Ryder had only been good enough, or human enough, Robbie wouldn’t have had to hurt him. Blah, blah, fuckin’ blah. Robbie’s apologies afterward were always the same. Non-existent or blaming Ryder for not being a better kid.

Fuckin’ little freak, you better not tell your mom. Little pussy. Are you still crying? God! Sometimes I really hate you.

He used to lock him in a dark closet afterward so Ryder could think about what he’d done. It was a cop-out. Robbie was just hiding his bruises and cuts and broken pieces from the world. Ryder had been scared of the dark, but did Robbie give a fuck about that? No. He reveled in Ryder’s crying. Told him over and over it was time to “man up.” Five fucking years old, and he needed to man up after being beaten?

Ryder remembered Robbie fighting his mom hard to get time with him, but then he would leave him for days with Ryder’s grandparents. And when he did show up, his temper was like dynamite, the fuse already lit and half-burned up. If Ryder wasn’t the perfect little pretend-human in every way, he got shattered. Ryder would Change into his owl out of terror, and it would make his real dad even madder. Robbie was openly anti-shifter and so ashamed of Ryder’s inner owlet.

Ima beat that animal right out of you.

Five fucking years old, and Ryder had twenty memories of abuse to conjure in flashbacks. Stupid fucking mind for being like a steel trap, clinging to all the goddamn horrors.
He was supposed to love me!
Ryder clutched the back of his head and wished to God he could cut that part of his brain out of his skull.

In the porchlight, Lexi wiped her damp cheeks and went back inside, closed the door behind her with a soft
click
. Good, at least she was safe, and now he could get ahold of himself the only way he could think of. Ryder strode along the edge of the woods until he reached his cabin up the hill, and then he bolted up the ladder and sat down on the roof like he and Clinton used to do when the world got too fucking heavy to shoulder. Spinning the phone end over end between his fingers, Ryder stared at the blue half-moon surrounded by all her stars.

Ryder hit the speed dial for home. Two rings and then, “Boy, you okay?”

At the sound of Mason’s voice, Ryder wanted to curl up in a ball and cry like a fucking baby.

“No,” he said, his voice breaking on the word.

“You want your momma to hear?”

Ryder shook his head like Mason could see it, swallowed hard, and forced the answer past his tightened vocal chords. “No.”

“Hang on, I’m headed to the roof.”

A minute of static on the line later, and Mason said, “Boy, tell me you can see that moon.”

“I’m looking at it right now.” The same one, and somehow that made him feel better, like he wasn’t so far away from the man who should’ve been his real, biological father.

“Tell me.” Mason’s voice was deep and sleepy, somber.

“Robbie sent me a message.”

“Fuck.” A rasping sound came through like Mason was rubbing his hand over and over his beard. “Fuckin’ mother fucking fucker.”

Ryder huffed a hollow laugh. “Yep, that’s about right.”

“Tell me what it said.”

And he did. Ryder repeated the messages word-for-word from memory because apparently his mind was broken enough to cling tight to the shit that hurt him the most.

“You know, I told him this would happen. I called it. I told him not to give up his rights because he would regret it someday and come crawling back, and look what happened. I want to kill him. Not because I’m jealous he’s your real dad, but because he’s a fuckin’ asshole. Messin’ with your head like this,” Mason grumbled. “Well good. I’m glad he’s dyin’. I hope it’s going slow for him. What are you gonna do?”

Feeling completely lost, Ryder shook his head for a long time. “I met a girl.”

Mason was quiet for the span of three breaths before he murmured, “
The
girl?”

“I think so. I get heat in my chest around her, and she makes me want to fix all the bad shit in my head just to be good enough for her.”

“And now Robbie comes along.”

“Exactly. Terrible timing.” Ryder was tempted to tell him everything. Every awful memory Robbie had given him, but what good would that do now? It would only make Mason and Mom think they’d messed up somewhere along the line and been unapproachable. It wasn’t like that. Robbie had just convinced Ryder that if he tattled, he was weak and would always be weak. And he’d so badly wanted to be strong like Mason and the other Boarlanders he’d grown up idolizing. “I can’t think of a single reason why I should see him. Nothing he could possibly say would change things. I don’t want to spiral, you know? I’m just getting my life together, and I don’t want Robbie to hurt Lexi in any way. And I just get this awful feeling deep down in my gut that the backlash would trickle through me and into her.”

“And it would, especially if you’re bonded.”

“I don’t know if we’re bonded. I’ve thought that a dozen times before, and I wasn’t.”

“You got heat in your chest around her. That’s a good sign.”

It could also be a good sign Ryder was just desperate to see signs where there weren’t any, and he was determined to take things as slow as Lexi needed.

“Ryder, you know I have to tell your mom, right? I tell her everything. She should know Robbie’s trying to get back in your life.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Will you call us tomorrow and let us know how you’re holding up?”

“Sure.”

Mason let off an explosive exhale. “Ryder, you’ve always made me so fuckin’ proud. Anytime I was out with you in public and someone commented on you behaving, or being cute, or complimented my beautiful family, well I just puffed up a like a proud rooster. And then I got to watch you grow into this funny, loyal, good man, and I get cocky about it, like I had somethin’ to do with you growin’ up right. But it’s you. You’re strong like your momma. I’m sorry for what Robbie’s done. I always hated it, but I’m glad I got a shot at being your step-dad.”

Ryder swallowed over and over to make sure his voice would come out steady. “Mason, Robbie’s just Robbie.” His eyes burned, and he scrubbed his hand down his face. “You’re my real dad.”

Mason sounded all choked up when he said, “I love you, boy.”

Ryder wiped his damp cheek on his shoulder and murmured, “Love you, too.”

And after they hung up, Ryder responded to Robbie’s message.