Ruin fought the need to study her and fury took him at recalling that same need with Isadore. Had the entire thing been part of his genetic make-up? Judging by the way he was behaving with Sam, yes, it must’ve been.
“What? No?”
Ruin realized he was shaking his head. “Nothing. That’s fine.” He didn’t want to do anything but think. And figure out a way to not link so damn hard to Sam, the way he did with Isadore. There had to be a way to control it. If he just paid attention to what he was feeling. Reign it in. Control it. How fucking hard could that be?
In no time at all, he found that out. With all his attempts at self-control, Ruin found himself circling Sam like a prey while she obliviously instructed the fascinated Sam on the importance of animal safety with this particular trap.
“Hey, I did it,” the boy whispered. “I did it Mr. Ruin,” he said louder.
“I heard.” The barked words made him cringe. He really needed to try and work on his relationship with the kid, none of this was his fault and he’d suffered a lot already. “You’re doing…great. Good job.”
Sam glanced back at him and smiled, knocking Ruin right on his ass in the control department.
“Miss Sam, a snake!” the boy cried.
“Move,” Sam yelled, sending Ruin running to her. “God damn I think it got me!” Sam gasped, moving Luke back. Ruin made it to her side and turned her. She pulled up her pant leg and two red marks lit up her ankle, already swelling. “Ahhh, Jesus, it hurts!” she whispered.
Ruin couldn’t believe it. “You’re a fucking survivalist!” he exclaimed. “How could you let that happen?” Ruin lifted her and hurried back to the safe house. “What kind of snake was it?” he demanded.
“Put me down,” she ordered, “I can walk!” She fought to glance back. “Luke.”
“Luke, you behind me?” Ruin called.
“I’m here Mr. Ruin,” he gasped. “What do I do?”
“Just stay close. What kind of snake was it?”
“It…was a water moccasin…I think it was a dry bite.”
“Dry?”
“Meaning no venom, shit it hurts!”
“You’re cursing,” Ruin said, “that’s not good. Tell me about the snake. What do I do?”
“I just need to get where I can look at it, if you put me down, I could!”
“I’m not putting you down. What has to be done? Tell me.”
“I just need to look at it.”
“And then what?” Ruin half ran with her, going through the knowledge he had with reptiles. About zero, really, there were too many species.
“If it isn’t dry, I may need anti-venom.”
“Where do we get that?”
“I have some,” she said.
“You have anti-venom. Of course you do.”
“God it hurts like a beeotch.”
Ruin felt her pain in his body. He needed to get her where he could focus and figure out what to do.
At the safe house, he made his way to the bathroom and sat her on the edge of the tub. She swatted his hand away while she raised her pant leg. “Ah damn,” she whispered.
“What? Is it dry? What are the symptoms we need to worry about?”
“Uh, breathing difficulty, um, low blood pressure.” She grabbed her leg above her ankle. “Nausea and vomiting, numbness and tingling, fucking pain!” she gasped.
Ruin scooped her up.
“What are you doing? Stop carrying me like an invalid.”
He took her to her room and kicked the door shut, laying her on her bed. “Be still,” he said, sitting and holding her leg.
“What are you doing?”
“Let me try to do something, but I need to focus.”
She sat up, watching as he held her leg in his lap. He shut his eyes and focused on her body and she gasped, gripping his shoulder, her finger nails digging into his muscle.
Ruin groaned in response to the sensation. “Don’t touch me,” he whispered.
“What? Does it hurt you too?” she whispered back.
“Yes. But not like you think.”
“Oh God it fucking hurts!” she gasped. “I get it, I repulse you. No touching.”
Ruin bit his tongue on the need to correct her, console the pain the words caused in her. “I guess crying is a part of the symptoms?” Ruin muttered, closing his eyes again, trying to get her to think of something else.
She punched him hard in the back, jolting him. “It fucking hurts okay? Besides, real men cry and aren’t ashamed of it.”
Ruin found himself actually biting back a smile. “Of course they do. Now be still.” Ruin focused his fire to a precise heat and cut her pant leg up to over her knee.
“Wow,” she whimpered. “That’s a cool trick.”
“Yeah,” he stroked the swollen area around the bite. “What does the anti-venom do?”
“It…it combines with the venom in my body and immobilizes it. Breaks it down.” Her whispered words shook and the need to heal her was getting urgent.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Try to hold still.”
“I can’t. The venom is affecting my muscles.”
Ruin placed his other hand on her stomach. “Be still.”
Her muscles slowly relaxed then.
“I…I think I’m experiencing…lowered heart rate,” she mumbled.
“You are,” Ruin said. “I just lowered it.”
“Oh wow,” the words wisped weakly, “cool trick.”
“I have a few.” Ruin again located the poison in her body, finding it just about everywhere. Ruin stood next to the bed. “I’m going to touch you, so don’t hit me. I don’t mean anything by it.” She rolled a gaze at him with furrowed brows then nodded.
Beginning at her head, he slowly passed his fingers over her body. When he got to her chest, he closed his eyes, refusing to give thought to the nagging puzzle of what the hell she wore there to hide her so well. But when he got to her hips, he paused and pulled away at discovering an extra something in her womanhood that shocked him and disturbed him to his core, forcing him to reevaluate everything about her.
She was a virgin?
“What,” she whispered.
Ruin met her gaze beneath her nearly closed eye lids. “Nothing. But I’m going to aid your body in forming its own anti-venom. You’ll be sick for a short bit, maybe a fever.”
“Wow, you can do that? Yeah, good idea. I like it. I’m thirsty.”
“I’ll get you something to drink as soon as I’m done.”
“Water. Please.”
Ruin placed a hand barely on her stomach and linked his mind to the blood’s reaction to the venom then multiplied it by a thousand.
He left the room then and stood at the bedroom door for a few moments, contemplating the feelings that came with his revelation about her. She’d said she was a man but maybe what she’d meant was a celibate.
Ruin checked on the kid and let him know Sam was fine and needed to rest. Then he touched him with the command to not worry and relax before bringing a few bottles of water back to her.
He opened one and she sat up and downed it then gasped. “Thank you. God, I don’t normally…”
“What?”
“Can you…maybe get something for pain?”
Ruin felt like an idiot for forgetting about that. He slid her to the center of the bed and sat on the edge near the foot, facing her. He took her leg and held her foot in his lap. For the first time, a comparison didn’t occur when he looked at a part of her. The idea stabbed him through his heart even as he stroked the calf in his hands, needing to remove the pain. Sam winced and Ruin hovered his fingers over the bite and emitted a laser of cold to the area until the flesh was numb.
“Oh God, yes,” she gasped. “Wow, thank you.” She flopped back on the bed where she’s fixed several pillows. “I’m hot.” She looked around. “There’s a fan.”
Ruin eyed the canvas black jacket she wore. “Let’s get you out of that jacket.”
She
sat up and Ruin helped her remove it and she laid back down. “Wow, I’m cold now.” She shivered.
Ruin looked around and spotted a folded blanket. Shaking the light quilt loose, he laid it over her, noting the tremble in her jaw. Ruin felt her cheek. “The fever won’t last long,” he whispered. When she leaned into his touch, he didn’t move.
“Thank you,” she looked up at him, her green gaze heavy from her body fighting the venom.
“For what?” He flexed his fingers barely, feeling the soft skin.
“For…” her jaw trembled, “I don’t know.” She rolled her eyes shut, her brows furrowing. “Can you…stay…in case I get…thirsty?”
Ruin didn’t know what affected him more. Her need for comfort, her need to hide that need, or that delicate softness in her voice that he’d not heard before. All three at once was a combination that brought him to her side, sitting next to her.
“I mean…you don’t have to…”
“I have nothing else to do.” Ruin resisted the need to learn by touch. But the urge to learn something about her, more, all even, was greater than he could stand. “Tell me about your family. The one before your adopted one.”
She lolled her head, putting her face away from him, presenting the column of her neck. He studied the steady strong pulse. “Nothing to tell really.”
“You had any brothers? Sisters?”
“An older brother.” She shivered and Ruin tucked the covers closer to her. “Lester.”
“A sister?”
“Nah. Just me and Lester.”
Ruin readjusted the covers, pressing them close again, needing to touch her. He stroked along her side, fitting the material firmly to her body, his mind assessing the shape. “You were close to him?”
“Yeah, I mean sure. I was four when…the accident happened. He was around ten. Standard…annoying older brother.”
“Your parents?”
She nodded a few times, looking forward. “Great guys, yeah. Fought a lot but decent people for being burdened with…a gifted freak,” she laughed lightly. “But…we had good times.”
“Did you? Tell me.” Ruin very much needed to hear something about her that didn’t involve how they met and what resulted.
She was quiet a while and chuckled. “I remember that time…we had a really bad lice infestation and… I had this long blond hair, right? Not a good thing to have with a lice infestation, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of with long hair.” She faced him now with a slight smile. “And oh my God we kept getting the lice over and over and my mom was so sick of wasting money, it was expensive. You had to get the shampoo, the spray, you had to wash everything at the laundry mat because you couldn’t do it all at home, had to be done all at the same time. And then oh my God, the shampoo started to irritate my scalp and I got these sores from scratching ‘cause the shampoo made you itch. And you couldn’t use the shampoo with sores, it’s a pesticide.” She snickered lightly, “But dad was old school,” she raised her brows, “he used gasoline to treat himself and he fought with mom about making me wash my hair. And so Lester…” she smiled, angling her sparkly gaze at him “he was terrified dad would make me wash my head in gas and I’d get cancer from the gas getting in my sores or maybe brain damage. And my dad’s all, ‘She’s probably already got cancer, probably what’s wrong with her, maybe this’ll help her!’ But dad wasn’t playing, he was serious. And so Lester begged me to cut my hair. And I’m like, ‘how will I let down my hair so that my prince can climb up?” She laughed at that. “Yes, I was once a girl at heart and thought I was a princess. I was growing my hair and thought it had special power. And you know what Lester said to me?”
Ruin absently stroked his thumb along the covers at her side. “What?”
“He said, ‘Your hair does have special powers, that’s why the lice won’t die, they live in it and it makes them into super lice. And soon they’ll grow into giant rats and dig a hole into your head and eat your brain!’ Oh my God,” Sam gasped, laughing quietly. “I so believed that little shite and begged him to cut it. I believed him for a long time.” Her smile lingered. “I finally realized he’d only said that to get me to cut my hair because he was so worried I’d get brain cancer.” She smiled happily and Ruin’s chest constricted at the pathetic sentiment. “I got brave enough to let it grow again and then the accident happened and well, my new family preferred I looked like a boy.” She shrugged and hit him with those clear green eyes. “Honestly? I couldn’t be happier. I use a dime size amount of shampoo. It’s a real money saver and water saver. No hair products, just dry it with a towel and I’m good to go. One of the things I don’t miss about the whole feminine fiasco.”
Ruin looked down, astonished with her bravery. Or oblivion. “If it’s any consolation…you make…a very beautiful man.”
Silence brought his gaze to hers and her laughter shot out. “Well if it’s any consolation, I can’t tell you how many women hit on me. And men,” she said with wide eyes.
“I’m sure.” Ruin grinned back.
“You want to hear something really pathetic?”
“Of course,” Ruin said, “It’s my dream to hear pathetic things.”
“I know right? Okay so when we had lice,” her voice strained with laughter, “we’d sit for hours picking out the eggs, looking for anything live like frackin monkeys, I’m not kidding you. It got to be an addiction, digging in each other’s hair. One of us would scratch and we’d all see it and before it was over, we were hunting down the culprit. Thing was, the shampoo made you itch and so you were scratching all the frackin time! And I remember my mom,” she erupted in snickers until she kicked her legs, breathless, “my mom would offer us money… to find the lice in her hair because ‘I can feel them crawling!’ And we’d look and look and she’d be like ‘I’ll give a dollar to whoever finds that bitch, I can feel them!” Sam thrashed in the bed in laugher then finally gasped for air. “Oh my God, those were…actually fun times.” She wiped her eyes. “We were like… the lice clan, but we were a clan, united in something, you know?” She angled a look at him and busted out laughing. “You should see your face,” she barely managed. “Did I not tell you it was pathetic? Oh my God, what! Don’t look like that, you’ll ruin it.” She busted out laughing again. “Ruin it,” she said. “Jesus, did you give me something in that water? I feel so frackin happy!”
“I’m glad.” Ruin stood and turned away from her when his need to link hard with her was more than he could stand. This was a bad idea. He was way too close to doing something he’d regret.
“Hey dude, sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to… put you in a funk.”
“I’m not in a funk,” he whispered.
“You…need to go out, it’s fine, I’m okay.”
“No,” he shook his head lowered, “I don’t need to go out.”
Chapter Twelve
More silence and Sam cleared her throat behind Ruin. “Look…” she began. “I get that… this is hard for you and I was thinking that maybe…maybe you could do this link thing different this time?”
His insides stiffened in resistance. “Different?” he muttered, taking a huge breath around his need to suddenly punch something.
“Yeah, I mean I think if we both work on it, we can keep the link light, you know?”
Ruin finally turned to her, frustrated. “I don’t think you realize what has to happen in this link.”
“Scriber told me,” she said lightly.
“Scriber told you? Told you what?”
She sat up a little, eying him. “About…” she shrugged a little, “the sex?”
Fury erupted in Ruin but he fought to control it. He paced before her bed. “Scriber told you we had to have sex?”
“Yeah,” she barely mumbled.
The idea that Scriber even said that word to her made him seethe, putting him back on the link defense. Back on figuring out what they were up to and back to beating them at their game. “And what do you think of that?”
/>
“I…think that…”
“That you can just fuck and keep it light? Is that what you think?”
She stared at him as he continued to pace. “Was…kinda…yeah.”
“You have practice with this?” he asked, hoping she confessed her virginity.
She gave a nonchalant frown and shrug. “Not…really. None.”
“You have no practice? With what we’re doing? Or sex.”
She scratched the bridge of her nose. “Both.”
Ruin eyed her while pacing. “So you have no practice with sex? At all?”
Her eyes moved with him as he paced. “How many ways do you want me to say that I have no experience what so ever, I’m a virgin, there, would you like to make me say it more, louder, faster? I don’t know about sex, nothing, anything, I’ve never done it, never planned on it, never wanted it. But it’s just sex, a natural act, most people do it—me the exception—but for this…important and unique situation, I’m willing to put aside my preferences and if we both work on this like a team, I don’t see why we can’t make it work.”
Ruin found himself facing her with hands on his hip, not sure what to do with her. “Make it work.”
“You’re repeating me again and I know you heard and understood me.”
His anger came like a slow boil. “I understood you, yes. I understood how you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“Explain.”
“This isn’t some art you can just pick up and learn.”
“Why not? We’ll consider it an arranged marriage, women and men do it in other countries all the time.”
“I can’t link with you if you don’t want it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I won’t.”
“Won’t because you can’t or can’t because you won’t.”
“Both if you like.” Ruin went back to pacing.
“Dude, why are you the one acting like a nervous virgin?”
“Okay fine,” Ruin said. “You think you can do this so easily, you think there’s nothing to it? Do you?”