“Why?”
His eyes flashed with uncertainty. “Because I metyou.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” Wes sighed, shaking his head with a small smile. “A beautiful, young, inexperienced sub without a single clue what she was getting into and who she was getting into itwith.”
I opened my mouth to protest his assessment of me, but in the spirit of radical honesty, I decided it had been an accurate one.
“I don’t want to be the reason you’re emotionally relapsing,” I said, my stomach twisting. “I don’t wantyouto get hurt because of me.”
He reached for my face, his touch gentle as he cupped my cheek. “Sweet girl. You’re not responsible for me. I’ve made my own decisions, and I’m now being honest about them with my support system. You don’t have to worry about me.”
His voice was calm, resolute. I was lost in his easy authority again, just like I was at the party. It was still difficult to wrap my brain around his declaration—that he’d stuck around, surrounded by people he’d spent his life hating, forme.
“I’ve spent my entire life worrying,” I whispered. I tilted my head. “Is it my turn to lore drop my trauma?”
Wes rolled his eyes and dropped his hand with a chuckle. “You and your Zoomer fucking lingo.”
“Regretting your return to ancient times?” I asked, poking the lump of flip phone in his pocket.
“I do not envy your rotted little brain.”
“Hey! You should feel sorry for our rotted little brains. Gen Z didn’t ask to be mind-controlled by the reptilians who live in our smartphones.”
Wes snorted. “Aw, is that what I should feel for you?” A teasing darkness eclipsed his eyes, his tattooed hand back on my thigh.“Sorry?”
I didn’t think it was possible for him to turn me on during a mutual trauma dump, but alas, Wes was also a man whocontained multitudes. He leaned back, reining in the electric current that had sparked back to life between us.
“What was your given name, Nova?” he asked me, and I was transported instantly back to my own beginning.
I turned to stare out the window, watching the slow turn of a tree’s bright green leaves in the wind. “Mary. My name was Mary.”
There was a reason I didn’t talk about the explicit details of my past. Once I started pulling at one thread, it was like the whole two decades unraveled in my palms, leaving only blood and Bible verses in their wake.
That was Lorelei’s first addiction. Making herself bleed. She cut herself before she found alcohol and men, and she disappeared into those vices like they were a second womb.
“I failed someone once too,” I said, already slipping, my body getting a strange numb sensation that dulled all my senses. The only thing keeping me here was Wes’s firm grip on my hand. “Lorelei and I had been inseparable since birth. Her father was the pastor of our church and the ruler of our town. He was wealthy and well-resourced in every way imaginable. The police department and local justice system were in his back pocket. It wasn’t a regular church, or even a typical conservative church. Pastor Roy Carter spoke of the end days—a rapture that was always only a year away. Year after year. And only the chosen would survive.”
Wes released a breath, and I focused on the weight of his hands like they were my lifeline.
“We were tested every second of every day. We could never relax, never become too comfortable. The chosen were pure. Desireless. They accepted everything they were given with a smile. None more so than the women, of course, because the men in high control religious groups are always allowed to live by different rules. Pastor Carter encouraged corporalpunishment, the withholding of meals, and solitary confinement to keep children in line at all times. Parents with disobedient children weren’tchosen.”
Wes pulled me closer to him, and I shivered when he took off my ridiculous hat, released my hair from its tie, and raked his fingers through my wavy strands. I relaxed into his touch.
“Turns out, the whole time Lorelei, the rest of the young girls, and I were being taught that our worthiness was derived from our purity and subservience, Paster Carter was—” I shut my eyes, but I opened them quickly when an unwanted memory popped up against my will. “He wasn’t just abusing Lorelei verbally and physically.”
Wes cursed, his eyes fiery.
“I walked in on them once, and I…”
“Oh, Nova,” Wes whispered, pulling my head to his chest as I choked on a sob.
“I ran,” I finished. Kink was not my greatest shame. That day was, my biggest regret I could never atone for no matter how hard I tried. “I should’ve said something. Done something. But I didn’t. I ran.”
“How old were you?” Wes asked, stroking my hair.
“Nine,” I said. “We were both nine.”
