“Tell me.”
“No. I’m not doing this with you. I’m not telling you what’s going through my head only for you to use it as another way to avoid opening up to me. I refuse. I really thought we had our breakthrough in the hot spring, but I was obviously wrong.”
His eyes bounce back and forth across mine as though he’s searching for an answer to a question he didn’t even ask. My attempt to get up is futile as he laces his arm around me and tugs me more firmly against his chest.
“I swear to you, may the Valories strike me dead if I lie, I’ll talk if you talk. I want the worst of the worst, though. Not just this situation, but the worst thing you’ve ever experienced. Then I’ll tell you mine.”
My gaze locks on his as my breath hitches. There’s no power pushing him. Without the maddening swirl in his irises, I see this request for what it really is.
Gods…it isn’t prying or curiosity.
Nor is it a truth that he can hold over my head later.
“Do you ask people to tell you things, hoping that it’s dark so you can relate to them?”
His head jerks and his grip on me flexes for a second before he loosens it once again.
“You share. I’ll share.”
My saliva slides down my throat like glass. My body falls still in his hands as I weigh both his questions and what I may get from him if I’m honest.
Is this something he’s needed the whole time?
My ugly truth so he’d feel comfortable talking about his own?
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you want to share with me—”
“No, I don’t know what my worst is. I’m not sure if I’ve ever known. Prior to meeting the four of you, I could’ve rattled off a list of things that’ve happened to me, but they were minuscule in my mind. They’ve started taking up more space in my thoughts than I care for lately.”
I try to pull my face from his hand, but he doesn’t allow it. I close my eyes so I don’t have to face him.
“The four of you make me feel so stupid, and you don’t even mean to or know that’s how I feel.”
His fingers twitch against my jaw.
“Well, Amick makes everyone feel stupid, but what have Creed, Kyzen, and I done to receive such slander?”
Such slander…I definitely didn’t say what I was trying to say right.
“None of you have backhanded me when I say something sarcastic or sassy.”
His entire body tenses beneath me.
Still didn’t get it right.
“Excuse me?”
Fuck it.
“None of you have come home and immediately demanded I make you food or clean up your mess or tend to whatever else needs tending to. You haven’t made a checklist for me to follow that I have to have done before I can leave the house or I’d be punished.
“None of you have raised your voice to me in anger because of something I’ve said or done. You haven’t pitted me in a training group of much stronger, much more capable men, and basically told them to fight me how they pleased.
“Creed’s never whipped me for beating him in training. Kyzen’s never slapped me for saying an inappropriate joke in front of people and embarrassing him. Amick’s never refused to let me eat because I asked too many stupid questions. You…
“That day when you reached me in the Court as I dangled from those chains, you didn’t whisper in my ear, promising you’d make me feel something other than pain, then bent me over and fucked me while spreading my blood across my new wounds—”
