Now when it mattered most, when the success of the most important mission of Isaac’s life was necessary tohissurvival, he couldn’t conjure the same absolute confidence he’d felt in all the previous missions he’d taken part in.
He stood at the edge of the bed, staring at the mass of white-blond curls in disarray over the pillows, and felt the stirrings of something that horrified him and made him question everything about the man he thought he was. Panic.
He held up his hands, staring down at them in disbelief as they shook violently. Fear knotted his stomach and his throat until he wanted to throw up to alleviate the wretched anxiety paralyzing him.
A small movement caught his attention, diverting his focus from the savage assault of emotions systematically taking him apart and rendering him useless. He frowned and leaned closer, wondering if he’d imagined the slight tremor of Jenna’s shoulders.
Fuck. He wasn’t imagining a goddamn thing. He’d thought she was asleep the whole time he was having his epic meltdown when she was curled in a protective manner, faced away from the door, crying—something she was clearly trying to hide.
Instantly he crawled on the bed and curled one arm around her waist, turning her over so she faced him. Her eyes and nose were red and swollen. Her bottom lip was ravaged from chewing on it in agitation. There were dark shadows under her eyes, giving them a hollow, bruised look, and there was such despair in her eyes that the knot in his throat threatened to cut off his air supply entirely.
“Baby, why are you crying?” he asked desperately. “What’s wrong? Are you hurting? Tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it, please,” he begged. “I can’t bear to see you so unhappy. You’re breaking my heart, honey. You have to know there is nothing I won’t do to make you smile. To make you light up for me and to make you happy. Please talk to me so I understand.”
He didn’t care that he sounded like the most desperate of men. He could feel her slipping away from him and it was the most miserable, helpless, gut-wrenching sensation in the world. Never had he felt this kind of agony and the panic he’d felt just seconds ago about being unable to protect her was nothing compared to his terror of losing her over something he didn’t know how to fight.
Jenna scooted as close to his body as she could and wrapped her arm around his waist, hugging and holding on to him tightly, the same desperation that was flooding through his veins reflected in her actions. She buried her face in his neck, her hot tears scalding his skin. Her body shuddered and her breath huffed out erratically as she seemed to try to get herself under control. She slid both hands between them and gripped handfuls of his shirt in her fingers, balling them into tight fists as if to reassure herself that he would never leave.
“You’re scaring me, baby,” he said, sounding completely unhinged. And that wasn’t far off the mark because he was fast unraveling, panic destroying the last tenuous hold he had on his composure.
“I’mscared,” she choked out. “Oh God, Isaac, what have I done? I know why they murdered every single member of the cult and I can’t bear it. I’m so terrified and I feel so helpless and selfish and I’ve gotten you all in so deep that there’s no way out. I don’t know what to do.”
Isaac took in a deep breath, knowing that she was on the very edge of a complete breakdown and he had to be strong for her. He couldn’t let her see how closehewas to coming undone or it would push her that much closer to shattering.
He wrapped himself around her so that no part of her was untouched by him. He rubbed his hand up and down her back and pressed tiny kisses to the top of her head, her brow, her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, her chin and finally her lips, inhaling her breaths like he was starved for oxygen. He willed himself to call upon the reserves that had served him so well in the past and focused on slowing his heart rate and stopping the shaking that had spread rapidly through his entire body until he’d felt too weak to stand even if he wanted to.
For several long moments he focused on pouring all the love he felt for her into every touch, caress and tender kiss while commanding his body to be stoic, steady and unwavering, her rock to lean on and depend on to make everything right in her world.
When he finally won the battle for control of his rioting emotions, he leaned back just enough so he could slide his fingers beneath her chin and nudge it upward till their gazes met. He nearly flinched at the raw pain and vulnerability in her eyes, but he forced himself not to react.
He rubbed his thumb lazily over her cheek, repeating the motion not only to soothe her but because he needed this contact. Needed to be touching her because as much as he’d sworn to be her rock, her anchor, she was his source of reassurance and calm.
“What’s scaring you, honey? Talk to me. Get it out so we can deal with it and then put it away so you no longer dwell on it. You know I’ll do anything to keep you from ever being in a situation you don’t want to be in. From now on, you’re in charge of your destiny and you’re the one who’ll make decisions for yourself. Not some fucking cult. Not some crazy fucking drug lord with a God complex and not me.”
Her eyes filled with tears again and they slid hotly down her cheeks to collide with his thumb.
“Baby, talk to me,” he pleaded. “It eats me up alive to see you so scared and unhappy. I know everyone in your life has let you down until now, but I swear to you, I will never be like those people. You are the single most important person in my life. My first and only priority. There is nothing you can’t talk to me about.”
“Oh, Isaac, isn’t it obvious why they wiped out every man, woman and child in the cult?” She swallowed back a sob and lifted her hand to place over the hand he was cradling her cheek with, as if she needed to touch him every bit as much as he needed to touch her. “They are systematically getting rid of anyone who knew me or had knowledge of my existence.”
Her eyes filled with pain unlike any he’d ever seen. Even having witnessed gravely injured people, his own teammates, the pain he’d seen in their eyes paled in comparison to what he saw when he looked into Jenna’s. His gut clenched because it was killing him. He couldn’t bear to see her in such agony when he was helpless to do a damn thing about it except listen to what she had to say. And he had a very bad feeling about the conclusion she’d reached. Dread filled his heart because he knew it was the exact same conclusion he and his teammates had.
“He’ll come after you—all of you—next,” she choked out. “He’s crazy. He believes himself invincible and is convinced that if he has me he’ll be immortal, that nothing can stop him. Death means nothing to him. God, Isaac, he inflicted terrible injuries on some of his own men and then forced me to watch. I was just a few feet away as they lay dying and they pleaded with me to save them, and yet I was powerless to do anything but watch because he wouldn’t allow me to help them.”
Isaac closed his eyes, knowing that he and Shadow had guessed precisely what the sadistic bastard had subjected Jenna to in the long hours of her captivity.
“He won’t stop,” she said in an aching whisper. “He’ll never stop until he gets what he wants and he doesn’t care how many people he has to kill to achieve his goal or even how long it takes. He’ll always be out there, waiting and watching, and when we least expect it, he’ll attack. Even if it takes multiple times and even if he has to wait years, he’ll kill every single person who works at DSS and any family they have. You and I will never have a normal life together because every moment we’ll be in fear of when he’ll strike and I can’t lose you, Isaac. I can’t. You are the only person who has ever loved me, who has cared so deeply for me and who doesn’t care at all about my ability to heal or try to use it and me to his advantage. When I’m with you, I’m not a freak who spent twenty years trapped inside the walls of a compound with no knowledge or understanding of the vast outside world. When I’m with you is the only time I feel normal. Like a real person and not some commodity to be used, traded or sold like I’m an inanimate object with no feelings, heart, soul or intelligence. I don’t want you to ever leave me. I don’t want you todie!” she cried, diving back into his embrace, pressing her face so tightly to the side of his neck that he wondered if she could even breathe.
He was overwhelmed by her impassioned words. His chest was tight, not with panic now, but with emotion that swelled larger and larger until he felt the sting at his eyelids as tears formed. He blinked furiously, inhaling sharply as he sought to control the swell of love for her that threatened to completely overtake him.
“I will never leave you, baby,” he vowed, barely able to choke out the words through the constriction in his throat.
He kissed her temple and ran his fingers through her tangled hair, wanting her to not just hear his words of love and his vow never to leave her. He wanted her to feel them. Wanted her to feel how awed and off balance he felt over the power of her declaration and what it meant to him. Whatshemeant to him.
She lifted her face, which was raw and hid nothing of what she thought or felt. She scrubbed away at her tears as if annoyed that she’d allowed herself that momentary weakness. Yet he was in awe that she’d been able to keep it together so well for so long from the very beginning. Quite simply, he was in awe of everything she was and the unbreakable inner strength she retained even after twenty years of daily subjugation.
“I believe that you don’t want to ever leave me,” she said. “What I fear is that choice being taken from both of us and you being killed because of me. I could never live, knowing you sacrificed your life for me. I would have nothing to live for.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said fiercely, her sincere words nearly stopping his heart on the spot. “Never say that, Jenna. No matter what happens, I want you to promise me that you’ll never stop fighting, that you’ll never give up and that you’ll go on, free and able to make your own choices about your life and do anything you’ve ever dreamed of doing. You have to swear it, baby, or I won’t even be able to function. I’ll think of nothing else but the overwhelming fear of you giving up if something ever happened to me.”
