My heart pounded and my throat felt thick. The flashback felt like a knife plunged through the fabric of my memory, and I knew that if I picked at the threads, the tear would widen. The rest would come pouring out.
Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut and stitched up the hole.
“Delilah?”
“It’s okay,” I said when my pulse had slowed.
“It isn’t. This is not how it’s supposed to be.” The admission seemed to wound him. “The relationship of a champion to his benefactor should be uncomplicated. Pure. I’m supposed to protect you. I’m supposed to spill the blood of your enemies and use it to sustain myself. Nothing could be simpler.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Gallagher ducked his head until I met his tortured gaze again. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“If I hadn’t made you give me that promise, this never would have happened.” I’d made him swear not to kill anyone unless my life were in danger. Oliver Malloy had wanted to rob me of my dignity. My choice. But not my life. “You shouldn’t have had to do what you did. They shouldn’t have been able to use you like that.”
Pain was etched into the lines of his forehead. It swam behind his eyes. “My shame is because I could not protect you from the amusement of a man whose life is worth less than the dirt you walk upon. But I swear to you that in those moments, I shielded as much of you as I could from his gaze.”
A sob erupted from my throat at the thought of how he’d tried to spare me.
Gallagher reached out to comfort me—then snatched his hand back at the last second, clearly determined never to touch me without permission again. “Do you remember?” he whispered, the rumble of his voice a mere suggestion of sound.
I shook my head. “I think I could if I tried, but...” I swallowed all the things I wanted to say but couldn’t condemn him to hear. “I feel like I should remember the conception of my child, no matter how it happened, but I can’t quite bring myself to.”
“Treasure that ignorance and know that it’s a mercy.” His exhalation seemed to carry the weight of the world.
“I wish you had the same luxury.”
“My only regret is that I couldn’t spare you from the event entirely. Though I must admit, I regret that less when I think about the blessing that has come even out of such a terrible moment.” He leveled a loving gaze at my bulging stomach. “Does that make me a terrible person?”
“Of course not.” I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and blotted my eyes. “It makes you a promising father.” And that was all that really mattered, ten months removed from the event.
“She could have no better mother. Though if I could change the circumstance of her conception, please know that I would.”
“I do know. It wasn’t your fault.”
His gaze held mine. “Yet you flee from me as if I might do it again.”
“I’m not—” But I was. I’d crawled across the bed until my hip hit the nightstand, though I didn’t remember moving.
“I am supposed to protect you with my life, yet I am the thing you fear.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Gallagher.”
“You’re lying.” The profound sadness swimming in his eyes seemed to echo my own heartache. “But I understand.”
“I’m not afraid ofyou.” I took his hand, trying to demonstrate the truth in my declaration. “I’m afraid of what he made you do.”
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But Iwillwork for it. I will cut out the tongue that spoke the order. I will dig out the eyes that witnessed your humiliation. I will chop off any other parts that offended you, and I will return with his bones for our child to play with.”
That time I smiled through my tears, as horrified as I was pleased by his description of cold-blooded slaughter.
Iwantedthe revenge he was describing. Thefuriaewanted it for me. We ached to see Oliver Malloy’s tongue lying limp in the dirt. His blue eyes divorced from that gaunt face, the sadistic gleam having long gone dead and—
Sadistic...
I remembered that look in the thin man’s eyes. I’d hidden the memories from myself, but they were still there, buried deep in my head. If I wanted, I could recover them, as I’d recovered the memory of standing over that body in the woods.
Or I could choose not to. I could choose to move on from past trauma and confront more current problems.
