“My parents were furious that I was seeing someone they hadn’t picked out for me, and that he was older than I was. They ordered me to stay away from him, but that only made me want to defy them. I dated Mark secretly for a year. After I turned seventeen, he asked me to marry him. I knew my parents wouldn’t like it, but Mark said we could go to another state that would allow a seventeen-year-old to marry without parental consent. I thought I was in love, so I quit school and ran off with Mark to get married. That’s when my hell really began.”
Devlon had so many questions, but he’d learned through the years that patience got him more answers than rushing people into talking. He took her hand back in his and just comforted her.
“My marriage wasn’t a thing like the dream I used to have as a little girl. I always pictured myself falling in love with this hero who would swoop me off my feet and take me to his palace. Everything would be wonderful.”
“Was it not a love match? I assumed all humans mated those they loved.”
“I thought I loved him. I tried, I really did try to be the best wife to Mark. When he needed me to work and support him so that he could finish college, I got two jobs. I took care of our house and yard, paid the bills, and made sure that he had everything he needed. It was never enough. The money I made wasn’t enough, the house was never clean enough. He complained that I nagged him too much and that I was a cold fish in bed.”
“Cold fish?”
“A fish is a type of creature that lives in the water, some live in really cold water. When women don’t have sex with men enough to satisfy them, the men call them cold like a fish. Evidently I wasn’t giving it up enough to satisfy Mark, so he started getting sex from others.”
“Your mate had sex with other females. Do your people not believe in loyalty?” This was the problem he had with Heather when he found out she had a mate that she didn’t live with. He questioned her loyalty. Did his sons need to worry about their mates?
“Most couples are loyal to each other. I know never cheated on Mark, but he was always looking to have his needs pleased and if I couldn’t do it, he would find someone who would. The cheating wasn’t the worst part of our marriage, though. After a year of verbal and emotional abuse, Mark started using his fists to show me how displeased he was with me.”
Devlon was furious. “Why would you stay with someone like that?”
“I did leave him many times, but each time he would search me out, beg for forgiveness, tell me he’d changed and that he wanted to start a family with me. That was the one weakness he knew he could use against me: I wanted children more than anything.
“I tried for fifteen years to make it work. One night we had a huge fight and he hit me pretty hard, knocking me down. It wasn’t the first time he hit me, but the injuries were so bad it sent me to the ER. That’s when we discovered that I wasn’t able to conceive. I had to come to terms with the fact that I’d never be a mother. It was devastating and life-altering. That had been the only thing left holding me in my marriage.
“While I was recovering in the hospital, Mark went back home. I thought long and hard about my life and realized that even if I could have a child I’d never want him or her to grow up with Mark as a father. I filed for a legal separation the day after I was discharged from the hospital. I moved out and waited for the year of separation to pass, then filed for divorce. It took a while because we were going through the division of property. Three years, and finally the day came for the divorce to be final. It took me so long to finally get to the right place to take back my life, but unfortunately, shit happens.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The day the nukes hit I was on my way to court to finalize my divorce. Mark was waiting for me at the subway station. He’d been trying for over a year to get me to back out of the divorce. He discovered that living on his own without my added income meant he didn’t have the luxuries he had grown used to. We were arguing on the subway car going downtown when the emergency alarms went off . Someone onboard checked their phone and told everyone to brace themselves because of an incoming nuclear bomb. The subcar we were on was shaken off track, and some died from the impact.
“For days after the impact I walked around in confusion and fear. Everyone around me was feeling the same thing. I stayed with Mark not because I loved him, but because he happened to be there and he took charge of the situation, organizing everyone. He was always good at bossing people around.
“Mark was one of the first to become tribe leader. It didn’t take him long to abuse his new position of power and start in on his old ways of bullying and cheating. I never let him put his hands on me again, but watching him trying to seduce other women in the tribe was too much for me. I left the tribe and searched for a different life. I’m just grateful to this tribe and its previous tribe leader for taking me in.”
Devlon was trying to take in everything that she’d just told him. She wanted to separate from her husband legally. He had so many questions, because divorce wasn’t a thing that his people had. She’d suffered so much, he didn’t want to push her with more questions. There was only one more thing he really needed to know.
“Do you still love him?”
She shook her head. “No, what I felt for him died years ago.”
Good enough. He reached for her, pulling her to him as he slanted his head and took her lips the way he’d been fantasizing about.Sweet...just like I imagined.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly between kisses.
“Kissing you.”
“Okay.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
She was everything he imagined and more—so much more. Now that he had a taste, he wanted everything.
