Page 48 of Owning His Mate

I pull back immediately, leaning on my hands as I hover over her, trying to gauge what she’s feeling. Her lips look swollen from our kissing, but her eyes are wild and a little dazed. I don’t like the feeling coming from her.

Are you scared of me?

She doesn’t answerthrough the bond, choosing to speak out loud instead. “No, Kye. I’m not. Maybe I was in the beginning, but I’ve gotten to know you now, and you won’t hurt me—not like that.”

I rock back so that I’m on my knees, sitting astride her legs. There’s something in the way she said it that makes all my senses alert. “Not like what?”

Apryle is trying to mask her emotions, but through the bond, I’m hit with a number of different feelings from her. Fear, shame, and other things that I can’t quite place.

I climb off her, giving her what she asked for, and she slowly comes into a sitting position.

I grab her hand in mine, wrapping my huge fingers around hers. She seems so dainty against me, and again I am reminded of the fact that my mate is mine to protect.

“You know you can talk to me,” I urge, unable to stop the ripple of pain from sounding in my words. I don’t like knowing she suffered something that I may not be able to fix.

She chews her bottom lip again, and I wonder if that is a nervous tic. “It’s not you. It’s never you. I’m fucked up, Kye.”

Those last words are spoken on a whisper.

“You’re not fucked up.” Tears brim in her eyes and panic wraps itself around my chest. My strong mate doesn’t cry. “Apryle?”

She doesn’t meet my gaze and it sets all my warning lights flashing. “I was in a pack at the time of my first moon ceremony. I was excited to meet my wolf, to finally become an adult. Well, you know how that goes with tau. I didn’t shift. In fact, my wolf didn’t even try to come forward. My pack knew instantly what I was, and they were not happy. They… They didthingsto me.”

Her voice breaks, and I watch in agony as she crumbles in front of me. The sob that erupts from her chest hits me like a wrecking ball. I feel it down to my bones.

I pull her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tight in my embrace. I expect her to fight me, to push me away, but instead she nuzzles her nose into the crook of my neck, holding me as if she is terrified to let go.

“What did they do?” I try to keep the anger from bleeding into my words, but I fail. I’m hit with the overwhelming urge to hunt down every single member of her former pack and hurt them.

“They cut me, and they bled me. For hours sometimes. They said I was unclean.”

I have to swallow down the growl that wants to escape my mouth. If her pack lives, they are on borrowed time.

“Nothing about you is unclean,” I rasp the words as she burrows deeper into me.

Apryle’s memories flood my mind as she opens the bond between us, letting me into her most private places. Snapshots of her being chased are truly terrifying before it melts into a new vision of males holding her down while disturbing faces laugh over her.

Pain spreads through my body as sharp wounds are cut into the flesh. Apryle screams in my mind and the smell of blood is so real it chokes me.

Fuck, this is torture. They hurt her in ways I couldn’t have conjured in my worst nightmares. A turntable of violence blinks through my mind before hands are forced between her legs. And a scream wrenches the air.

My head pounds as it all disappears and I’m back in the room, sucking back a breath. Her pounding heart beats in time with mine as the memory fades into nothing.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and I can’t smell blood now, but magic. The burning scent of it fills my nose. “It was easier to show you than tell you.”

I hear the hint of shame in her words, but it’s not hers to bear. She didn’t do anything to warrant what those animals tried to do to her.

They were between her legs…

My breath catches in my throat, razor blades making it impossible to swallow as my wolf snarls.

What happened after that? Is that why she was terrified of me? I meet her gaze, a hundred emotions rippling through me.

“Did they… force themselves on you?” Acid coats my tongue as I speak those foul words.

She shakes her head, closing her eyes and still clinging to me. That she trusts me in this moment to comfort her gives me so much hope for us.

Her fingers skim over her skin and I follow the motion. I hadn’t noticed the small scars covering her hips and thighs when I was between her legs, but now they are like beacons, drawing my gaze. I feel an ugly emotion spread through her that fills me with deep anguish.

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