Spinning around violently, he flings me off him and into the trunk of the tree behind me. I hit the unforgiving surface with a dull thud, my vision refocusing to the sight of Jaden looming over me.
“Did you just attack me, bitch?” Reaching down with his great maw of a hand, Jaden grabs me by the neck and forces me upright.
I gag, unable to draw breath, my nails scratching fruitlessly at his muscled forearm. My heart races, my blood rushing so swiftly that I feel dizzy, my whole world narrowing to Jaden. Spots flash before my eyes when suddenly, another very large figure materializes right in front of me. I only have a split second to register the danger in those mossy-green eyes before I’m free. Before Cullen Hunt grabs Jaden and slams his face into the thick, wide bottom of the aspen.
I fall to my knees, gasping for breath.
Cullen yanks Jaden back for a fuller swing, my ex barely managing to save himself from a broken skull by getting his arms up in time. Blood streaks down Jaden’s face, staining his gray shirt and cracked press credentials that somehow still swing on the red-spattered lanyard. High-pitched pathetic whimpers that I haven’t heard from Jaden before now escape his throat. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
Cullen releases him.
The moment he does, a familiar triumphant sneer grips Jaden’s face. He climbs to his feet, either too oblivious or too dismissive of the wild, rage-filled look in Cullen’s eyes. It’s the same look that the brute at Hannigan’s Pub wore just before going berserk.
Jaden scrubs the back of his hand across his face. “You want the whore? Fuck, she isn’t worth—”
Cullen moves in faster than I can follow. Grabbing the back of Jaden’s head, Cullen slams it against his upraised knee, a cracking sound confirming a broken nose. Jaden sways, staying upright only by virtue of Cullen still gripping him.
With the next breath, Cullen lands a fist into Jaden’s middle. His chest, his sides, his legs. Thump. Thump. Thump. I open my mouth to yell, but the sheer brutality of the scene paralyzes my voice.
“That’s enough, Hunt,” Liam shouts, moving toward the fight as I finally absorb that all the Tridents are now calling for Cullen to stop. “Stand down.”
“Commander! Stop.”
My throat tightens, my hands scraping desperately against the dirt as I pull myself up.
To my relief, Cullen lets Jaden go, the man barely able to stand on wobbly legs.
Turning toward me, Jaden spits a glob of blood. “This is your fault, you—”
Cullen shoots forward again, grabbing Jaden’s shoulders and slamming a knee into his ribs. Once. Twice. When Cullen winds up for a third blow, I think he might kill Jaden outright.
As if having come to the same conclusion, Liam and Eli lunge in to pull him bodily off Jaden. Wrenching Cullen’s arms behind his back, the Tridents haul him several steps back, Cullen struggling like an enraged bear in his friends’ grip. A few yards away, Kyan rises from where he’d been crouching beside Jaz and—after getting a thumbs-up from his sister—walks over to where Jaden lies curled up in a fetal position.
“Hunt! Hunt, look at me, arsehole!” Eli’s screaming into Cullen’s face snaps my gaze back to the men’s struggle.
Liam now has both of Cullen’s arms behind him in an iron grip, Cullen yanking so hard against the hold that I think he might dislocate his own shoulders. His eyes, glassy with pain, stare at something that isn’t Colorado while his chest heaves with quick breaths.
I gasp, the scene before me suddenly echoing another time and another room. Cullen in his bed, facing an invisible assault as sweat runs down the grooves of his muscled back, his nightmares gripping his soul. Except there, in that room, I didn’t need to rip apart his shoulders to bring him back. Gathering myself, I start toward him.
“Reynolds, stay away.” Eli snaps at me with a military harshness I’ve never heard from the easy-going Trident before. It’s my father’s tone. Jaden’s. It’s the tone Liam used at the gym when he struck him so hard that Eli fell to his knees. I flinch away, my hand clenching the hem on my jacket, and Eli nods his harsh approval before returning his attention to Cullen.
I want to run. But the Tridents will hurt Cullen if I do. He’ll hurt himself. As if to punctuate my realization, Cullen jerks against Liam’s hold. No. I can’t let this happen. I hate Cullen. But I… I feel something else for him too.
My pulse racing, I take a step back toward him, bracing myself for Eli’s yelling—which comes right on schedule.
“Which part of stay away did you have trouble with?” he shouts at me.
“The stay away part!” I can’t believe I’m actually shouting back. Standing up to Eli. That despite my sweating palms and thumping heart, I put my hand on his broad shoulder and push. “You’re hurting him.”
Eli spins, placing himself between Cullen and me. “He’s not himself, Sky. You don’t understand. But let us deal with it before you get hurt.”
I meet Eli’s slate-gray eyes, the glimpse of vulnerability and fear in them making my chest tighten. I’m not the only one who’s scared for Cullen. Who’s afraid of things getting worse. That quickly, Eli is Eli again to me, with his unruly hair and all too human feelings beneath the godlike body. Putting my palm on his chest, I feel the pounding of his heart as I push him gently. “He’s not going to hurt me, Eli. Trust me.”
Eli looks over my shoulder, probably to get Liam’s consent, before stepping back.
Swallowing, I lift my eyes and meet Cullen’s mossy gaze, my hands up in front of me with my palms open. “Cullen,” I call.
He flinches.
I don’t. Moving slowly, I ignore Liam’s growl of warning and extend my palm until the flat of my hand cups Cullen’s scruffy cheek. “Can you feel my skin?” I ask softly. “Look at me. Do you know who I am?”
Cullen’s throat bobs as he swallows, his cheek pressing against my palm. I stroke his cheekbone with my thumb, the muscles beneath his skin coiled tight. Then his body tenses, jerking against Liam’s hold.
“Let him go,” I order Liam. Not ask. Not plead. Order.
And to my utter shock, the SEAL obeys.
Cullen steps forward into my arms, his body shaking as I wrap myself around him, the pair of us sinking to the stony ground. Coaxing his head against my shoulder, I rub small circles on his broad back, his powerful body trembling under my touch.
32
Cullen
Cullen sank to the ground, his world narrowing to a set of brilliant blue eyes, to silky strawberry locks framing a beautiful face. Strawberry—not red or blonde. That was important, as was the scent of passionflower shampoo, which Cullen held on to like a lifeline anchoring him to the here and now. He was in Colorado, not Afghanistan, and the men who’d restrained him were his friends, not insurgents. The flashing lights in the distance were from the sun and clouds, not mortar rounds. Yet Cullen’s heart still hammered against his ribs, his breaths quick and too shallow to let him think clearly. He inhaled again, drawing in that calming passionflower scent that cleared away the phantom taint of gunpowder.
He was in Colorado. In Sky’s arms—which seemed too good to be true and thus took several more breaths to accept as reality.