I raise my chin. “How do you know?”
“I know.”
I don’t question him. Just sigh heavily because he’s right. If time, experience, and reputation are any sign, he’s always right.Raphael recognizes something in Briella we don’t. Perhaps we never will.
Some horrors exist in her mind and her body. I knew that from the moment I took her in my arms and helped her through the trauma we were dealing her. The most fucked up trauma bonding she didn’t deserve. I recognize complex PTSD when I see it. I looked it in the eyes every goddamn day in the military. But I saw it more in the eyes of all the messed-up kids we grew up with.
“Wrap her wounds in a secondary layer,” Raphael instructs me.
“Why?”
“Fuck, this ass!” Rory croons, interrupting us, and I stiffen, jaw hardening at how he parts her cheeks and tilts his head, eyeing her dark hole. “Look at how stretched it is from my co?—”
Vincent throws the punch this time. Oh, for fuck’s sake. I rub my eyelids as they brawl, their bodies crashing into the furniture, the cave echoing with the sounds of their thundering bodies. Blood spews from Rory’s nose. He gives Vincent a black eye.
Seth gets his arms around his partner at the same time that I grab Vincent by the back of his neck and haul him back to my chest. “Stop, Vincent.” I grip him in a choke hold, applying pressure to his carotid artery. I have no qualms about knocking him out. “She doesn’t need this.” I lower my lips to his ear, trying to calm him as I did her, but Vincent is full of wrath and thunder.
I have him on the ground a second later. The only one who can dominate him. Military prowess and training pitted against years of his underground fighting.
He tries to brawl with his brute strength, but I use honed defensive techniques, conquering him every time until I’ve pinned him with my forearm locked against his throat. My otherhand grips the back of his neck, holding him still and strong. My knees have slammed against his arms, rendering him immobile.
His hips buck beneath my pelvis. Fuck, the bastard is giving me a run for my money.
“Stay down,” I growl, lowering my head until my brow touches his.
He fumes through his nostrils, eyes burning with fury, fury that’s almost too raw, too honest. There’s something else hidden there, but Vincent’s not ready to face it.
Not like the rest of us.
Even Rory has stopped. It doesn’t take him long to calm down because Seth does what’s necessary to care for his partner. Rory unleashes his tension, fucking Seth’s throat, gripping his dirty blonde hair. Shouting curses the whole time.
Seth is strong enough to drop to his knees, even if he could lay Rory out with his lumberjack muscles. His energy calms the sociopath. No, not calms. He just absorbs Rory’s hot-blooded wrath. Seth is the vessel Rory can pour into.
He has ever since he bumped into Rory at the orphan’s home. The only one who dared get in Rory’s way.
Vincent could be my vessel, and I could be his—if he weren’t a stubborn, in-denial jackass.
His body tenses under my grip, every muscle rigid and taut like a coiled spring. I can feel the heat radiating off him, a warmth that burns through the air between us. Our eyes lock. His breath quickens. Something primal surges in him, and the sharp scent of sweat and anger fills the space. But in this fleeting moment, where our bodies are too close, the tension between us shifts, just for a second. His breath falters, and I swear his eyes flicker with a mix of confusion and something deeper.
I feel his cock harden and rise beneath my ass. We share a darkened gaze, a silent confession of what we both know is true.
“Vincent…” I murmur, breathing against his face. “What happened in the pit?”
When he starts to turn away, to get lost in the hell of his memories, I tighten my grip on the back of his neck and press my forearm harder on his throat.
“Look at me,” I command him. Not the way Raphael does. Raphael’s commands are unbreakable, untouchable. But I give Vincent the fight, the will to battle me because I need to earn his past…just as he must earn mine.
Another hard press to his throat, and Vincent writhes, opens his mouth, and spits out, “Shehappened.”
I let up a little, but don’t let go of his neck. I brush my lips against the side of his head and whisper, “You hate the pit. I know why, Vincent. I know what it reminds you of.”
“Don’t,” he growls, his muscles bulging, ready to buck again.
“Look at her,” I tell him, relieved to find his eyes flicking to the bed, obeying me without question. “Now, look at me.”
He does. Fuck, he does. Those heady brown eyes meet my dark ones. I hold his gaze before I roam my eyes along the endless ink wrapping around his throat, his upper chest, knowing it covers nearly every inch of his chest, arms, and back. A few stray tats on one leg. A leg sleeve on the other.
Vincent has the most tats. I have the most piercings. Seth is second, next to me. Raphael has the most scars, external and internal. And Rory? He’s got scars, the Scottish accent, and the ruddy hair on his chest.
