And she would despise him for the rest of her eternal life.
It shouldn’t matter to him. Until a few days ago, he didn’t have any idea she existed.
But now he did, and that simple fact changed everything.
Nothing could be the same after coming here tonight. Now he knew what she had endured because of Opus’s evil. He understood her desire to make someone pay.
However, knowing that and allowing her to continue on this path were two different things.
She was interfering with Order objectives. She was interfering with his own as well. As righteous as her need to avenge her family might be, he had his own need for retribution too.
“You need to give this up.” He shook his head. “You’re going to get hurt, Devony. I don’t want to see that happen.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
“Damn it, you should be.” His reply came out harsher than intended.
She flinched, but didn’t retreat. She didn’t lose a scintilla of the stubborn resolve in her beautiful eyes or the upward jut of her chin. “Have you ever been alone, Rafe? I mean really, truly, alone?”
“No,” he admitted soberly.
“Then don’t talk to me about getting hurt. Don’t tell me I need to give up when I have nothing else. This hurt,” she said, clenching her fist at her breast as her voice choked. “This rage, is the reason I get out of bed every day. I can’t stop until it stops. Can’t you understand that?”
He did. As much as he wanted to deny it to her, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know something of how she felt.
His family and friends might have all perished if Opus and their mole had succeeded.
If he had lost everyone that day?
Just the thought of that emptiness carved a hollow in his chest.
Devony had been living that pain every second of every day for five long months.
She sat beside him in a rigid silence that nearly broke him. Her grief was profound, even all this time later. When he first saw her in Asylum, she had seemed so closed-off and brittle. So angry. Now he knew why.
He cupped her lovely face, stroking her velvety skin with the pad of his thumb. “I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. No one should have to experience that kind of loss, Devony.”
“I’m still hurting,” she murmured thickly. “And I’m so tired of being alone.”
Her naked vulnerability in that moment nearly killed him. He gathered her close, even though everything logical and reasonable inside him pleaded for him to keep his distance. He couldn’t let her bear her pain alone.
Especially when he had been born with the ability to heal, to restore.
He spoke into the fragrant silk of her hair. “Do you want me to take it away for a little while? I will, if you want me to.”
She swallowed hard, then slowly, firmly, shook her head. “No. I need to carry it. I need to keep them alive inside me, even if it hurts.”
Christ, she was an incredible woman.
As attractive as he found her physically, her courage turned him on even more.
Her strength and resilience left his control in tatters.
If she had agreed to let him heal her grief, he would have done it gladly. And then he would have left immediately afterward and made the call to the Order to find a safe sanctuary for her, somewhere far away from this business with Opus Nostrum and from him.
But she hadn’t caved to her pain.
No, Devony Winters was made of stronger stuff than that.
