“Willow. Wake up. You’re dreaming.”
Nothing.
Fuck.
I decided to risk a gentle shake of her shoulder.
At first contact Willow bolted upright, her weapon in hand and pointed directly at me. I froze. “Willow, it’s Oberon. You were dreaming.”
“Shit.” Shaking now, she lowered the weapon to the bed next to her hip and ran one trembling hand through her sleep tousled hair. She had never looked more beautiful. “I’m sorry.”
“I am not.” I watched her for long minutes as she attempted to regain control of her emotions—and failed. Her tears did not stop.
Willow was not my mate. I did not have the advantage of sensing her emotions through a mating collar. But I had many nights of practice holding Amalia, when she was small, after she woke from nightmares.
Decision made, I scooped Willow off the bed and into my arms. I thought, perhaps, she would protest. Instead, she leaned her head on my shoulder and sobbed. I sat on her bed and leaned my back against the wall. I had no intention of letting her go.
“Tell me.” My demand was soft, but unrelenting.
14
Oberon
Willow was in my arms,although not the way I had imagined.
I suspected this moment between us would be far more important than anything else we did, clothed or not.
I activated the lights, just enough so she could see me, know she wasn’t alone in the dark. Not anymore.
If I survived the mission to free Amalia? Never again. She would never be alone again. I had yet to choose a second, but a few minutes with Willow and the warriors would be lining up, begging me to accept them.
Willow had suffered enough uncertainty. Perhaps I would gather sufficiently powerful warriors and allow her to choose.
“Tell you what?” So much depth behind her question. If I said the wrong thing, she would keep her secrets, try to protect me from her pain.
“Everything.” Every. Fucking. Thing. I wanted to know everything there was to know about her.
She cried for a long time. When her words at last began to mingle with her tears, she described the beauty of the desert and canyons where she grew up. How she’d been drawn to becoming a ‘cop’—which was one name for human’s who enforced Earth’s laws—when her mother was murdered.
Her grief was old, but deep. I waited—would wait for as long as she needed to be ready to tell me more.
Her breath caught as she told me about a call for help that came from a local family. They called the law enforcement team—including Willow—to investigate what the family believed were intruders on their property. Willow’s tears dried as she recalled the building full of animals, but nothing suspicious.
“I should have climbed back into my car and gone back to the station. But I didn’t. I saw flashing lights farther out, along a back country road.”
“The lights were from a ship?” I knew what was going to come next and focused on relaxing every muscle in my body. A difficult task when all I wanted to do was hunt and kill the ones who hurt her.
“Yes. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but they had taken other women and tied them up in the barn. That family was right—there was something going on that shouldn’t have been. But by the time I showed up, they’d loaded their prisoners onto the shuttle.”
“They should have returned to space. Not taken you.”
“They told me, after they stripped me and put me in chains, that the sight of a female warrior amused them. They baited me onto that road. I was over-confident. I had a shotgun in the car, backup close, and I was really good with my pistol. I walked right into their trap.”
“You could not have known you were chasing down a spaceship. Earth is not part of the Coalition. What they did is not legal, not by your laws, or ours.”
“Didn’t matter. I should have been more careful, listened to my instincts. I was too dependent on my uniform and my gun to keep me safe.”
Understanding dawned. “That is why you did not ask for a weapon once you were freed.”
