“That’s fair,” he pushes a strand of damp hair off his forehead. “Trauma begets trauma.”
“What did you remember?” Hunter asks, not interested in my baggage.
“I think it was while I was taken. I can remember a small room. There was a bed. And a small shaft of light. Slats like it came through bars.”
“You were in a cell?” Hunter asks.
“Maybe? Everything was old and musty. It was cold.” I shiver, the feeling rushing back over me. “It felt like I was buried.”
“Like you were underground?” Hunter asks quietly. “Anything else?”
“I could hear people. Whispering.”
“How many?” Damon asks instantly. “What did they say?”
“I don’t know.” The trails of their words echo faintly in my skull. “But they were female.”
Damon’s eyes narrow. “Why are you just telling us this now?”
“At first I wasn’t sure, and I’m still not, but if I’m going to be put under hypnosis, it seemed like I should say something before it comes out with them.”
The Dukes. Our enemy.
“Good call,” Hunter says. “For once.”
We push outside into the crisp morning air and walk toward the truck. Hunter circles to the driver's side and unlocks the door. As I climb in, I feel a tug on my skirt.
“What’s this?” Damon asks, pressing his fingertips above my hips. I wince at the tender spot. His voice turns hard. “Someone touched you?”
I glance over my shoulder and pull down the sweater. “The King. Last night.”
He makes a sound–maybe approval. I slide across the bench seat, moving to the middle. A moment later, I’m squeezed between them, and the truck rumbles to life.
“So you had this memory when I held your head under water?” Damon asks, thinking hard.
“Yes…” I swallow. “I couldn’t breathe, and your hands were tight around my throat. I blacked out for a minute, then I had the first flash. Then later, when I was cleaning up, taking a shower, it came back to me.”
Damon and Hunter share a look over my head–silent and loaded.
“What?” I ask.
Hunter’s jaw tightens.
“Something triggered that,” Damon says at last. “Something like being held under water…”
“Or being hurt,” Hunter adds. “Scared.”
The truck rolls down the drive, the weight of what heisn’tsayingsettling colder than the morning air. Pain and fear revealed my memories. That’s not something I want to reflect on right now.
Instead I focus on the road ahead, on the way I’m wedged between them on the bench seat, knees pulled up, my skirt riding high enough that the cold vinyl bites into the backs of my thighs. Damon’s arm stretches along the back of the seat behind me, fingers idly brushing the nape of my neck like he owns the skin there.
“It’s good to know what makes you tick,” Damon says, low and warm, in a way he hasn’t spoken to me in weeks. “So, thank you for sharing that.”
“You’re welcome.”
His tone is soft. Gentle. I’ve heard it before, back on that night we were in the car after he took me to feed the cats, before the wedding. When he let me use him to make myself feel calmer. Safer.
My knee falls against his. Those fingertips trail across my neck. The heat of him feels good. Right.
