I jumped when his thumb caressed my cheek, the slow, gentle path of it making my skin tingle. I hadn’t realised I was crying, but there was a tear on the pad of his thumb. And when he said, “Tell me what happened,” I dug inside myself for some of that quiet strength and explained all the things that had happened today.
“They didn’t do anything wrong,” I rasped when I’d told him about the class and the bar. “They didn’t hurt me, but I…”
“It’s too soon,” Devil guessed, his eyes somewhere between crystal blue and the silver of storm clouds. “After the Alpha’s Bark, you’re not ready to be touched.”
“No,” I agreed, relieved that he understood without me having to explain the numbness or the noise in my head or theway my skin burned when Wizard touched me. “It feels like I’ll never be ready again. I don’t want to be touched or—or any of that.”
Guilt swirled in my belly, and I chewed the inside of my lip, making sure the radish seeds were spaced evenly in the planter.
“Angel,” he sighed, a world of sadness in those two syllables. “If you never want sex again, no one would ever hold it against you. Every last asshole in this place would understand. If they’ve come to take it for granted that they can touch you, that’s their problem. Don’t you dare feel bad for it.” When I didn’t say anything, a steely tone entered his voice. “Jessia.”
I gouged my teeth into my lip and glanced up.
“You havenothingto feel guilty about.”
I looked away again. “But I used to love it. I know some people would call me a whore—” His sudden, throaty growl made me smile. “But I never felt cheap or dirty or used. It was a mutual, beautiful thing. I could fix a bad day, help someone chase away nightmares, and burn away my own nightmares at the same time. Thosemenwho took us, they stole that from me. They stole my power.”
“If I could kill them all over again for you, angel, I would.”
I shrugged, the movement brittle. “Them being dead doesn’t change what they did. It just means they can’t do it again. Everything that happened, it lives up here.” I tapped my head. “And I don’t think it will ever leave.”
“Have you spoken to Lynn and ChaCha about it?”
“Lynn’s… hiding, I think. Or plotting someone’s gruesome murder. It’s hard to tell. I’ve seen ChaCha once, but we just hugged. I don’t think I can talk about it. Not yet. Even this, I—it’s hard, just to hint at what they did. I don’t think I could say the words. Definitely not to my friends.” I gripped the edge of the planter, my knuckles white. “They were right there,” I whispered. “While it—they wereright there.And no matter howmuch I purred, or tried to calm those men, it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”
“Angel, no,” Devil breathed, his sorrow so strong it was like I could feel it in my chest. “Nothing that happened,nothing,is a reflection of you or—”
“But I purred,” I interrupted, my voice a mangled thing. “I purred and it didn’t work. It always works. No matter how bad it gets, my purr can save me. Even if it’s only a weak thing, it never failed me before.”
“Your purr didnotfail. Nothing at all would have stopped those monsters.”
“If I was an omega—”
“Like Vienna?”
His voice was quiet, careful, but the words hit me like a slap. Because he was right. Vienna was an omega but she was still trapped in that pub. She sobbed and screamed and bled like us.
My shoulders dropped, the numbness bleeding back into my fingers, making my face cold.
I picked up the trowel and planted another seed, barely feeling the chill of the handle in my palm. I could never leave the compound again. How many more men were waiting to grab someone like me from the streets and lock me up? The police didn’t care enough to stop them, and the Knights could only hunt down so many. If I left the gates like last time, if I took one single step outside, I’d never be safe. No purr would save me. No amount of fighting lessons would keep me safe.
“It wasn’t your fault, Jessia,” Devil said baldly. “Tell me you know that.”
“I could have made it stop,” I disagreed. “I should have.”
“Weshould have stopped it,” he countered. “I should have.”
“No, it wasn’t—” He raised an eyebrow and I sighed. “Fine, it wasn’t my fault, either. I know that. I just can’t stop thinking I could have ended it, if I’d been stronger.”
“You came out of that basement, and here you are, breathing, speaking, functional. It doesn’t get stronger than that, Jessia.”
I frowned at the row of seeds.
“But even the strongest people need a safe place to let all their guards down,” he said gently, an echo of what he’d said before. “So any time you need a hug, you just let me know.”
“Right now?”
Instead of words, he answered by opening his arms, and I shuffled along the planter to nestle into his warmth. There were no words to describe the way I felt as his arms came around me. Every other touch made me want to scratch at my skin or lash out so they’d regret laying hands on me. But Devil’s arms had become a haven. Here, I felt okay. Protected. There was no sense to it, but maybe there didn’t need to be.
