“Can I ask you something?” She looks up, meeting my eyes. Her hazel ones glimmer, on the verge of glassy with emotion.
I nod.
“During the Initiation…” She fiddles with her fingers, a nervous, shy habit. “Why did you help me? The grounding, the holding…why did you do that for me?”
Her voice doesn’t tremble, but it’s too steady, too rehearsed, like she’s been carrying the question around, afraid of the answer.
I hem her in, hands on either side of her body, gripping the wooden bed of the garden. She doesn’t shrink. No, she arches her back, lifting her chin. I’m aware of what I did in that cave and how it tethered us in a different way than my brothers. Along with treating her wounds, it’s a responsibility and a privilege I will carry with the utmost respect.
So, I don’t hesitate to look deep into her eyes and say, “Because I wanted you to survive.”
She blinks. “Did you want that for the other girls, too?”
My chest tightens. “Indifferent.”
She watches me, lowering her brows. “Why?”
I hold her gaze. “They weren’t you.”
Her breath catches, and something flickers behind her eyes. That same dark fire I saw in her after we’d used her in every way, the same dark fire she showed when I held her even as she was breaking down.
We broke her down, but she didn’t break.
We scarred her, but she owns those scars.
We burned her. But she rose from our ashes, and we’ll damn well treat her like our Queen from now on.
She narrows her eyes. “They deserved better. All of them.”
I nod, my jaw hardening. “You’re right. But nothing can help them now.”
“A proper burial would.”
I straighten, a sigh heaving. “I’ll speak with Raph. You’re our Queen, Babydoll. We’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
“Thanks.” She sets her hands on her hips, confident, self-assured. “But it’s not about being happy, it’s about what’s right.”
For the first time in quite a while, a shred of guilt tightens my chest. But I hold her gaze and nod again. “I’ll see to it. But I regret nothing, Briella. Yes, it was every black shade of wrong. None of us will deny that. Not even Rory. But you are ours now. And that’s all that matters.”
She blinks, then softly says, “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Maybe not,” I admit. My hand hovers near hers, fingers brushing the inside of her wrist where faint, ghostly scars live like echoes of battles fought in silence. “But I’ve seen enough to know the worst demons don’t always come from outside.”
She drops her gaze, but it’s not out of shame. It’s calculation, measuring what I’ve said, the truth of it. Then she lifts her head again, and her eyes…her eyes are fire wrapped in ice. Steady. Burned through and reforged.
“You think those are my worst demons?” she asks, a flicker of something darker and deeper.
“I don’t know.”
“They’re not,” she says, stepping closer, her presence swallowing the space between us like smoke. “They almost were. They tried. They cracked me open and ripped me down to the bone. But they didn’t finish the job.”
I hold my breath.
“They didn’t kill my heart,” she continues, voice quiet but sharp enough to cut. “I had to tear it out myself just to survive. I buried it. Locked it away. And I got out. On grit and rage. I did it out of spite and the sick kind of hope that feels like broken glass in your throat. I had to lose a part of myself and become…something else. Something that wanted to live again.”
My chest aches with the things I want to say but don’t have the right to. I simply give her the space to share whatever she chooses.
She leans in, eyes never leaving mine. “I grew a new heart. Stronger. Crueler. One that doesn’t beg to be loved. One that claws back.”
