Lindsay McKenna - Wolf Haven

Slowly, over ten minutes, Gray began to see Sky calming. Began to see the glazed look slowly leaving her wide, terror-filled eyes. Her hair was matted with sweat, the strands thick and twisted around her head. How badly he wanted to protect Sky.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said over and over.

Sky kept hearing a man’s low, urgent voice in the background. Finally, she recognized it. Instantly, she homed in on it as she fought, choked and screamed, trying to evade the water pouring down her nostrils.

Her legs were free! It broke the grip of the nightmare. She floated somewhere in between the paralyzing terror and Gray’s voice growing stronger, calling her back to safety.

Slowly, the adrenaline left her shaking body. She coughed violently, feeling the swell of water in her nose tunneling down into her throat, eventually receding. Sky stopped seeing the tiny mud hut room, stopped feeling the cold, wet wooden board beneath her body.

Blinking rapidly, she realized she was no longer there. She saw a crystal light in the center of a ceiling above her. She was warm. She sobbed for breath, raised her hands. She was no longer cuffed to the table. The pain, the blood flowing across her wrists had been very real. As she stared at her wrists in front of her face, she noticed the many long, pink, jagged scars around them.

“Sky? It’s Gray. Turn and look at me. Come on.”

His low voice was so close. Sky slowly turned her head, staring up into his worried, narrowed eyes. He was crouched near her head, his arms draped over his knees, watching her. There was anger deep in his eyes. Yet a sense of safety poured off him toward her; it was undeniable. Gagging, Sky fought the hold of the nightmare. She was here. She wasn’t there. She was safe! Hot tears jammed into her eyes. Tears of relief.

“Sky? I’m going to slide my arms around you. Can I hold you?” Gray watched the tears spilling down her tense cheeks. Her flesh was waxen. It ripped at his heart. He had to do something to get her out of that toxic nightmare.

She rolled slowly to her side and struggled to sit up. She pressed her hand against her tightly shut eyes. Terrible, gutting sounds tore out of her.

Gray didn’t wait for an answer. He moved in quickly, sliding his arms around her shaking shoulders and beneath her bent knees. In moments, he picked her up and carried her out of the bedroom and into the darkened living room. She collapsed against him, her face pressed and buried against his naked chest, her fingers digging convulsively into his shoulder, as if trying to hide. Gray understood.

The thin wash of moonlight gave him enough light to see where he was going. Sitting down in one corner of the leather couch, Gray settled Sky across his lap. He pulled a bright orange afghan from the top of the couch and hauled it across her, feeling how cold she was. She was a quivering mass in his arms. Her sobs serrated his pounding heart as he pulled her tightly against him, his arms around her, just holding her. Holding her safe in a world gone insane around her.

He tried not to be influenced by the sweet smell of her hair as he tucked her head beneath his jaw. Tried not to allow the soft firmness of her body against his to stir up his own male needs. Tears always made him feel so damned helpless, but at least Sky could release the terror.

Rocking her gently in his arms, he rasped against her ear, “It’s all right, Sky. You’re safe now. You’re with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you now, baby. It’s all right. You’re safe....”

CHAPTER SIX

WITHOUT THINKING, GRAY began to run his hand across Sky’s tangled, damp hair in an effort to calm her. He felt so damned bad for Sky as she cried in his arms. Her warm tears moistened the hair across his chest. Her fingers spasmed, opening and closing against his flesh. If anyone ever thought that waterboarding wasn’t torture, they were so full of shit. The proof was huddled in his arms. Sky physically shook, emotionally and mentally broken by the torture. Gray had no idea how many times it had happened, either. The more they did it, the more broken the human being became, splintered and fractured.

“It’s all right, Sky,” he murmured against her ear. “It’s going to be okay. Get it out. Let it go.” And then Gray grimaced. He was the last person a woman would want around when she was crying.

When Julia cried, which wasn’t often, he’d get up and leave the hut at the Peruvian village. He just couldn’t handle it then. But now... This was different. He’d matured, fast. And Sky was a military vet like himself. She’d paid the ultimate price of war. She was a nurse, someone who helped save people’s lives, and she should never have been put in this situation in the first place. But she had been. There was no defined front in Afghanistan, and that left all women serving in the military just as exposed as the men. Gray knew the statistics, that a hundred and fifty women had died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, untrained and yet out on the frontier of combat.

Gray smoothed her hair, allowing his hand to trail across her hunched, trembling shoulders, moving slowly down her long spine. Every time he caressed her, Sky relaxed a little bit more against him.

Sky needed a lot of care right now, and Gray didn’t mind giving it to her. What would have happened if he hadn’t been here to interrupt her grisly nightmare? How many times had they occurred and Sky had had no one to help her or talk her down?

Without thinking, Gray pressed a soft kiss to her hair, tightening his embrace a little, absorbing the continued trembling of her body. Sky’s weeping slowed and she finally grew quiet within his embrace. Gray could feel her naked vulnerability, her trust. It humbled him, since he couldn’t help but want her in other ways. She didn’t deserve that kind of reaction from him at all. Instead, Gray forced himself to focus on giving back to Sky, not taking. Too much had been taken from her already.

Sky finally unclenched her hand against his chest and wiped her face with her shaking fingers. Gray caught her hand, holding it within his own. Her hand was so small and white against his large, darkly tanned one. Pressing her hand against his chest, he whispered, “It’s going to be all right, Sky. You’re past the worst of it. Just rest. I’ll be here. I won’t let you be alone right now. I’ll stay with you as long as you want....”

Gray’s roughened words spilled through Sky’s fractured emotional state. Eyes tightly shut, her cheek resting on the damp, silky hair across his chest, she felt his male strength gently surrounding her, making her feel safe. His voice soothed her, and with each ragged breath she took, this new calm chased away the virulent terror still holding her in its invisible grasp.

Gray’s presence brought her back. They shared a common military background. Somewhere in her fragmented mind, Sky wondered if Gray had ever been tortured. It was as if he understood on levels she could never give voice to. And he was here for her. Present. Like a big, bad guard dog.

He was a large man, and she felt so small leaning against him. Gray was holding her gently as he might hold a hurt child. The PTSD, the waterboarding, had stripped her of her own internal strength. Whereas before she had always been the calm, quiet, strong one in charge of the E.R. at Bagram, she now felt as if she were constantly unraveling. Sky had been unable, thus far, to put up boundaries on her wild, rampant feelings, to stop them or not allow them to run her life as they did now.

If she’d been worried Gray wouldn’t understand, or that he’d be disgusted with her as her father had been, she was relieved. Sky had had several episodes of the same nightmare at home, her father aggravated with her, but she didn’t feel anything exuding from Gray right now except care and protection. Sky never thought in a million years she’d ever be the recipient of a SEAL’s guardianship. Right now she was like a starved animal lapping up anything Gray could give to her in the way of emotional support. There was no judgment emanating from him. Every time Gray’s large hand gently trailed across her hair and down her back, Sky felt a little more stable. A little more calm. His mouth lingered near her brow, the warmth of his moist breath flowing across her face. There was such tenderness in this man. She’d never experienced it quite like this. Gray was not only soothing her, but Sky also felt as if his presence were actually, in some miraculous way, feeding her strength she presently didn’t have. Feeding her hope. Tending to her torn soul.