So he was as affected by our lunches as I was? That made me smile. “I felt the same.” I might have said more, but the timer went off. “Are you hungry?”
“Always,” he drawled as I hurried off to the kitchen. “Nice place.”
“It’s one of Ellie’s condos,” I told him. “She uses it to help women. She’s the head of Amanda’s Hope.”
“I heard that,” he said as he stepped into the kitchen and checked it out. “So you saw your daughter yesterday?”
I let out a slow breath as I brought the cucumbers and onions I’d been salting over to the sink to rinse. “We should probably start at the beginning. If you want.”
He let out a long, heavy breath, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the fridge. “I don’t know. I knew chicks were trouble but still sat and ate with you. It seems stupid to stepin deeper when we’ve both clearly got shit all over the fucking place, Aurora.”
I blinked back tears as I nodded, understanding what he was saying.
“But you made me feel special and seen in a way I don’t think anyone’s ever made me feel before,” he mumbled and moved into the kitchen more. “My life has been fuckingshit. You are the first good thing in a long time and you’re pure in a way that scares me—”
I burst out laughing. It washorribleof me to do, but I did and tried to hurry to wipe the tears that had started to fall.
Which was a massive mistake given I’d been touching salt and onions. I hissed as it started to immediately burn, rinsing my hands better and then wiping my eyes.
“Tell me what you did,” he demanded. “I’ve had EMT training even if it’s still supposed to be ongoing.”
“Salt and onions and touched my eyes,” I mumbled, feeling like a moron.
“Got it.” He quickly flushed my eyes after cleaning his hands and then got some ice from the freezer. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you,” I whispered, already healing. “Sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“No, you’re not the type.”
I let out a slow breath, thinking maybe this would be easier to discuss when I wasn’t looking at him. “I’m so far from pure or anything good that I know no matter what I do, I will still end up in hell when I die, Creed.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” he muttered. His body was warm against mine as he sat me on the stool. “Tell me.”
I nodded, thinking of the best place to start. “Have you ever heard men say women are for breeding, not reading?”
“Yeah, like in movies about…”
I chuckled darkly. “I’m centuries old, yes. Supes were generally more evolved than the humans, but not my family. Women were to be silent, but I was taught a bit because I was to be married to another coven leader and being an idiot would embarrass him. But my family still teaches that women are trouble so—”
“So keep them ignorant so they can’t fight back?” he drawled. “Yeah, well, since they treated you so well of course you guys are trouble, not they’re assholes for treating people that way. What a bunch of fuckers.”
I frowned. I’d never thought of it that way. I’d always truly thought the men in my family had just thought of women like rebellious mares that needed to be broken. I hadn’t seen the truth as Creed framed it. “Thank you.”
“I’m confused,” he admitted.
“Sometimes—you give an outside perspective that I can hear well,” I explained. “A different view than I’ve lived with for so long if that makes sense.”
“Yeah, I feel that.”
My eyes were better by then, so I moved away and wiped them with a clean, wet paper towel one more time before focusing back on the food. I definitely needed to focus on something else to get this all out.
“You’ve never told anyone all of this before, have you?” he put together, his tone worried.
“No one who seemed to truly want to listen or I trusted enough to not use it against me,” I whispered, clearing my throat and focusing on squeezing out the water from the cucumbers and onions. “I was a child when I started menstruating. Thirteen. That’s normal.” Memories assaulted me of that day. “Preparations started immediately.
“By the time my cycle was done, I was packed up with very little and not of my choosing and being loaded into a carriageto be sent to my new husband. My father actually spoke to me, which was rare. He told me to be obedient to my husband and not shame the family or our ancestors would take me to the worst hell when I died.
“That was it. My mother told me this was why she had given me life and they had spoiled me for so many years so to do my duty as a woman should because I was now a woman.” I snorted. “Spoiled. My brothers were given everything and—neglect. It’s called neglect now. Then, it was just called being a girl.”
