I want to say thank you again, but the words feel too small. Instead, I let my hands linger on his cheeks, tracing the rough stubble, the heat of his skin. He stands, towering over me, and when he lifts me again, I don’t protest.
He carries me to the bathroom, sets me on the edge of the massive tub, and starts the shower. Steam rises instantly, curling around us. Beast shrugs out of his ruined white T-shirt and kicks off his boots, but leaves on the rest of his clothes. I take in the rest of his hidden tattoos and scars that map his body like a language I want to learn.
He turns to me, his eyes unreadable, and kneels again.
“Let me care for you,” he murmurs. “Please.”
I nod. His warm hands engulf my face and there’s a pure untethered desire written in his expression when he caresses my cheek with the rough pad of his thumb. He slips my glasses off and sets them aside. Something primal is happening between us but surprisingly with this man, I’m too scared to take the first step.
His hands move to my bra, fingers gentle on the clasps, and he removes it with a reverence that makes my breath catch. My panties follow, the last barrier dropping away. I stand before him, naked, battered, unashamed.
He steps into the shower, jeans and all, then holds out his hand. I take it, letting him pull me under the hot spray. The water pounds over my skin, washing away blood, grime, months of fear.
Beast takes the soap, lathers it between his palms, and starts at my shoulders, working his way down my arms, over my breasts, down my belly. His hands are steady, careful, as if I might break beneath his touch.
I close my eyes and let myself lean into him, trusting him to keep me upright.
“Tell me about your childhood. Talk to me about what little Layla Wren was like.”
That makes me smile.
“I was such a book nerd. Spoiler alert, though. I still am. When I was little, I remember my mother washing my hair. It was the one thing that was our thing, ya know.”
He hums an agreement.
“We didn’t have a lot of contact given they were both top neurosurgeons. It’s how they met. Anyway, most times I’m pretty sure they got so tangled up in their work they forgot they had a daughter. Except on Sundays when my mother would wash my hair. She would ask about school and I would ask about her medical cases. She talked to me as if were an adult and I loved her so much for that.”
“You were a genius kid after all. I’m sure she knew not to downplay her conversations with you.”
I crack an eye and turn a fraction toward him, his soapy fingers still working the lather in my hair.
“How did you know that?”
He leans in until his nose touches mine. “I hunted for you. In order to do that I needed to know everything I could. Your colleagues were very chatty.”
That one statement brings the death of my friend to mind. I tell Beast about my friend, how I came to be in New Orleans, and eventually in the hands of the Vultures.
“That was the piece of the puzzle I couldn’t crack. No one knew you were connected to Daniel. The security system at the school was conveniently down the night you were taken and I didn't know to look for your friend. Harlow just knew you were on the inside and our way into cracking the Euphoria trade wide open.”
He spends the next five minutes telling me how they’ve been hunting Veles and the Vultures down and trying to weed out their infection in society for months before even learning about me. They wanted to root out the problem, not just the people, so they took their time.
“I’m sorry we didn’t just clean house on the Vultures sooner and you would have never suffered at their hands.”
Silence falls between us as he rinses my hair and then begins a second washing.
I don’t want to focus on all the things I witnessed or suffered through with the Vultures so I start talking again as a way to root myself back in my life. “Growing up I knew I wanted tobe like my parents. I wanted to help people. I buried myself in schoolwork and tried to show them I could be the very best.”
“How did you become a chemist?”
“By accident really. I graduated early in life. The more I studied medicine, the more I realized I could help people by helping them not get sick. So I went into chemistry.”
I inhale sharply and let out all the negativity that’s been eating away at my insides. “It kills me knowing my knowledge hurts people. I can’t think about all the people who took the Euphoria pills and died without me getting sick to my stomach.”
“You can’t think of that. You are not responsible for the people who chose to put drugs into their bodies.”
I turn in his arms and place my hands on his chest. “I know you’re right but I felt so alone and wanted it all to end for the first couple of months. It was hard knowing no one cared if I lived or died.”
He wraps an arm around me and tips my chin up, searching my face.
