“You worked at a diner in Texas,” Tiernan began to speak as he bullied me with his proximity into the middle of the floor, then began to slowly circle me. “Did you ever get hit on by the patrons?”
“Yes,” I said, because of course, I did. That was par for the course with serving as a relatively attractive young woman.
“Did anyone touch you?” he asked, his voice hissing, flicking with venom like a snake’s.
I gasped as one of his hands lashed out to pinch at my bottom. The sharp sting made me gasp. Reflexively, I swatted my hand behind me to knock him away, but he’d already circled in front of me again.
“Did any of them try to steal a kiss?” he growled, lunging forward so quickly I stumbled back in shock.
He caught me with a fierce hand in my hair, yanking it back to expose my neck. I thought—wickedly, wildly, heart pounding with fear and something far darker—that he might land a kiss there.
He didn’t.
Instead, his teeth sunk into the junction of my neck and shoulder, biting down hard, then pulling at the skin so his teeth raked over my flesh. The bright pain mellowed into a tingly burn at the site of impact. Farther down my body, that burn echoed between my legs. A shameful blush seeped through my cheeks down to my chest as Tiernan danced away on light feet.
“Fuck off!” I lashed out, slashing my hand through the air.
“Did they?” he demanded, voice ringing out through the cavernous gym.
No one else existed outside the ring as he stalked toward me, ferocity stamped in every inch of his beautifully carved face.
“Did they take what they wanted uninvited?” he continued to snarl. “Did they make you feel like the scared, silly little girl that you are? Defenseless and alone?”
He’d cornered me against the ropes, his weaponized body looming over me, a dead end I was desperate to escape from. I watched in horror as his right arm reared back as if to hit me.
Despite everything, I’d never believed Tiernan would hurt me and the idea of it felt like a colossal betrayal.
“Violence isn’t the answer,” he agreed, throwing his cocked arm toward my face. I closed my eyes and braced for impact, terror in every atom of my body. When the pain didn’t land, I opened my eyes to stare at his dark face, at the open palm that hovered briefly over my cheek before softly, light as a whisper of breath, tracing the curve of my cheek down to my chin which he curled his fingers around. He held me still while those sun-bleached jade eyes burned into mine. “But sometimes, it’s the only response someone is able to understand.”
I blinked at him, chest heaving, blood roaring through my ears. I felt off-balance, not because of the threat his tall, honed body represented against mine, not because he’d scared me so totally I’d been one second away from crying.
I was off-balance because he’d proven his point so eloquently.
What if I’d been ready for that Morelli thug to come for me as a girl? What if I’d been armed with defensive skills when Quinn Waterstone tried to force me to my knees in the girl’s locker room one day after school?
What if peace was my mother tongue, but violence was my second language?
I’d be safer, surer certainly than I’d ever felt before.
A sigh shuddered out of me. “Has anyone ever told you that you can be rather melodramatic?”
Tiernan blinked at me, his mouth softening with shock at my reaction. Around us, someone laughed and I remembered that we weren’t alone. My eyes sought out Brando who was looking at us with wide eyes.
“You okay, bud?” I asked him calmly even though Tiernan’s body was still humming an inch away from my own, his warmth beating against me like waves against the shore, luring me particle of sand by particle of sand farther under his control.
Brando swallowed visibly, then shrugged. “Tiernan’s right, you know. That’s why superheroes fight, to save people from bad guys. I bet if someone tried to hurt us now, Tiernan wouldn’t let them. Right?”
Tiernan didn’t look at my brother, he continued to stare at me, something subtle working behind his eyes. Abruptly, he dropped his grip on my face and stepped away, swinging to face Brando with a tiny smile.
“Better than that, I’m going to teach you to save yourselves,” he promised.
“Cool!” he cried out, fist-pumping into the air before he scrambled to enter the ring himself.
Henrik held the ropes for him and I watched as my little brother jumped into the ring and launched himself at Tiernan. Our startled guardian reacted instinctively, catching Brando in the air and planting him on his hip. He looked shocked and vaguely horrified to be holding a kid in his arms, but Brando didn’t seem to notice. He was already showing his new idol how he could make a fist and asking whether or not he could learn to do Iron Man’s signature flying punch.
I watched him unfurl like a flower in the light of Tiernan’s male influence and ached knowing I would never be able to give that to him. That he would never be able to get that from our dad.
Conflict raged war in my chest as I watched the cruel adult soften slightly the longer he held the child, his mouth curling up in the corner as it did when Brando pretended to punch him in the chin.
He wasn’t a good man. I knew this. Had evidence of it in the way he’d stolen my locket, threatened me, antagonized me, and didn’t even seem to mourn my mother.
But he was the only man we had.
And I was loath to admit there was some insane logic to his mad, cruel view of the world. If Brando and I were going to be the wards of a man like Tiernan in the kind of world he lived in, we needed all the help we could get to protect ourselves. I’d rather learn to protect us myself than ever count on anyone ever again.
As if sensing my resolve, Tiernan’s gaze snapped to mine and he lifted one dark brow in question.
I bit my lip, but inclined my head. “I’ll let you teach me.”
His eyes sparkled at my choice of words. “I’ll let you learn from me.”
“Tiernan?”
I turned to look at the female voice that called out from the bottom of the stairs and nearly gasped at the sight of the beautiful woman standing there.
“Tilda.” I didn’t have to look at Tiernan to hear the scowl in his voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I hadn’t heard from you,” she said distractedly, her pale gaze sweeping over the scene. I watched as she reached up to tug at a lock of auburn hair before she tucked it back behind her ear, a kind of nervous tic. “What the hell are children doing here?”
Tiernan sighed gustily behind me, so I looked back to watch him hand off Brando to Ezra unceremoniously. Brando didn’t mind, already turning to talk about fighting strategy with the deaf man, speaking slowly so he could read his lips.
“I’ve taken on two wards,” he explained as he jumped over the ropes with one hand and landed lightly on the black mats, making his way to the well-dressed woman.
Tilda blinked as she accepted a kiss on the cheek from him. “Wards? You?”
“Trust me, he wasn’t our first choice,” I intoned.
Tilda frowned at me curiously before directing the look to Tiernan. “I feel as though I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. The cousin I know would never take in two random orphans.”
“They aren’t random,” he offered obliquely. “And I’m not happy that you just strolled into Lion Court. You know how I feel about privacy.”