My cries die down, and I sniff, pushing the words out. “What happened in that town? There was…” I swallow. “There was fire. And people were screaming…”
He lets out a long, heavy sigh. “I brought you home. Had a doctor come in and see you, and he hooked you up to an IV.”
Remembering the state Hawke found me in, I shiver, then clutch Rowan’s black T-shirt in my hands.
“I’m sorry I took so long. I…” His fingers dig into my hair. “I was desperate,desperateto get to you. But I will always find you,Dove. In this life and the next, and no matter where you try to hide from me. I will always find you.”
He breathes into my skin, holding me close as what I hope it is the last of my tears slide down my cheeks.
“I was so afraid,” I say again, my voice almost as quiet as a whisper. “Those people… they’re monsters. And even after everything that happened, I still don’t think they did everything they wanted to do to me.” I think back to the moment that man touched me, shuddering. “At night, I could hear the others screaming from the cells next to mine. They sounded so afraid. So unbelievably alone. What did those men do to deserve that? I just… I don’t understand.”
Rowan hushes me softly, pulling my head back so I can look into his eyes. They look tortured, and the sight breaks my heart. “We don’t have to talk about it right now. But whenever you feel ready…”
I close my eyes, reliving the whole thing in my head. “They didn’t… I wasn’t raped.” I can practically feel his body sag next to me with relief. “Someone tried to touch me one day but there was this man,” my face scrunches up, “who tried to help me.”
“What man? Do you know his name?”
I don’t want to say it, the guilt overpowering me. But I have to. I know I have to tell the world what I did if I want any chance at forgiving myself.
“Magnus,” I say, opening my eyes but looking to the side, avoiding Rowan’s stare. “He was working with Cole, but I didn’t know it right away. I thought he came into my cell to…” I stop, finding the courage to look back into his eyes. But the courage never comes. “Rowan, I did something really terrible.”
A tear spills out of the flood in my eyes, touching my cheek. I inhale sharply, the air shaking in my lungs.
“Hey,” he murmurs, gently wrapping his fingers around my chin and bringing my gaze back to him. “Anything you had to do to survive is completely justifiable. Do you understand me?”
I look up at him from under my wet eyelashes. “Magnus came in and gave me a knife to protect myself,” I whisper. “But Salister found out about it. And he said… that if I didn’t k-kill him, he’d let all his men use me until… until I wouldn’t recognize myself.”
Rowan closes his eyes, drawing in a slow, steady breath that barely softens the sharp edge of his wrath and pain. His lips press together as he exhales, as if he’s trying really hard to control himself.
“But I didn’t choose—I couldn’t. And then when they came in to do exactly what he’d said, I begged them not to touch me. I didn’t realize then that not choosing any option was only giving them the power to choose for me. So they made me do it—forced my hand onto the knife that killed Magnus. I could’ve tried to kill the guard instead, but I was so mortified by everything, I just froze and let everything happen before my eyes. And now… now Magnus is gone, and it’s all my fault.”
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, terror swimming into the green of his eyes.
Terror, but not for living through my experience in his head, I know that. But for what it did to me, for knowing a monster now lives inside my mind, one that he can’t fight for me, can’t protect me from. For knowing I’ve seen things I still can’t comprehend. Before being taken, I’d never even seen a dead body in a casket at a funeral. I was always too afraid to look. And now… to think that I saw body parts,actualbody parts scattered throughout that tunnel… to think that I sank a knife into someone’s flesh…
“Listen to me, Dove. That man… he wasn’t your friend. Okay? He wasn’t your fucking friend. And don’t make it sound like you had a choice. You know damn well that you didn’t. They forced you into it, and I am so sorry you had to do it, angel, but you didnothing wrong. Fuck… you’re too pure. Too fucking pure for this world.”
I sob uncontrollably, ashamed of myself for being so weak. The thought of ending things comes back to the front of my mind. I look up at Rowan and I know there’s not much that would faze this powerful man, but losing me might be the one thing that could destroy him. He holds and comforts me as best he can, but it does little to ease my pain this time.
I don’t know how to deal with this feeling of utter hopelessness.
I really don’t.
sixteen
Rowan
Ipush her hair out of her wet and pale face, my jaw clenching when I look into the emptiness of her eyes. I knew it would be bad, that she’d need time to recover, but it already feels like she’s lost way too much. I hold her tightly to my chest and curse those dead motherfuckers in my mind, wishing I’d kept them alive longer. It doesn’t feel like I did enough. It never does.
“I’m here, angel. I can make this all go away. Okay?”
She doesn’t respond. Her head is lightweight, and she’s letting me maneuver it as if she’s losing the fight.
Fuck.
I reach one hand behind her knees, keeping them up, and the other between her legs, finding the warm spot that might bring her back to me. It’s what she knows with me, and I’d rather have her thinking about this than whatever else is going through her mind.
I push her panties to the side and press my middle finger into her soft pussy. She’s not wet, and I don’t expect her to be. But she’ll take it.
