Page 52 of Beloved Sacrifice

“Why?”

“Do you remember I said there were three siblings? And one was in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“The youngest, Tabitha, was sick. A rare degenerative disease. We loved her; we all loved her. She’s one of those people. And they told me that if I told anyone about them, about the purists, or if I tried to run away again, they’d hurt Tabby—that’s what we called her.”

“They’d hurt their own child?”

“Tabby didn’t matter to them. No one talks about it, but members of the Trinity Masters are all able-bodied, healthy, and smart. Legacy kids who aren’t all of those things don’t get admitted.” Rose’s lip curled in disgust. “Tabby would never be a member, so all she was good for was leverage over us.”

“What happened to your boyfriend?”

“He was stubborn. Noble. He insisted he’d find a way to save us. He stayed until his brother came home for the summer. Then he left, to go find a way to save us. And then he disappeared.”

Marek grimaced.

“We knew—the other brother and I—that Elroy had killed him. There was a fire at an apartment they owned. That’s where they kept their mistress. In the fire, they found two bodies. A man and a woman. The mistress and the boy I loved.”

The death of hope was a horrible, soul-crushing thing for anyone to experience. “I’m very sorry.”

Rose started pacing again. “The brother, who was my age, he had been trained as a Dominant too. He decided to protect me. He took me to Elroy and collared me.”

“Collared?”

“He claimed me as his property.” She spat the last word as if it were bitter.

“He was pretending, like his brother had,” Marek concluded.

“No…” Rose shook her head. “Caden wasn’t pretending.”

“Caden?” It hadn’t escaped his notice that she hadn’t said the name of the brother she referred to as “the boy I loved.” Names had power, and speaking the name of a loved one who was lost was often difficult, and sometimes impossible. Marek frowned as pieces fell into place. “The ‘friend’ who was killed?”

“Yes. Caden has owned me since we were seventeen.”

“Owned you, that’s—”

“Accurate. What it is, is accurate. He collared me, but he was serious. He was a Dom. He treated me like his submissive. I don’t think he knew any other way to be. As long as I was his, his father mostly stayed away from me. Instead, we both danced on Elroy’s strings, running around gathering information, protecting the purists’ secrets.”

“Because they would still hurt the sister, Tabby?”

“Yes.” Rose closed her eyes and tipped her head back, as if she were letting sunlight kiss her face. But they were underground. There was no sunlight.

“What about your betrothal?”

“Ah, that’s where fate intervened. The Grand Master had to step down, and Juliette unexpectedly became Grand Master. The first thing she did was dissolve the betrothal.” Rose opened her eyes and smirked. “Of course, Juliette married Devon in the end. Elroy and Barton were not happy. For a moment, they thought that they might have a double agent actually bound to the Grand Master. But Devon and Juliette were in love, and had been for years.”

“And you?”

“They didn’t love me. How could they? They didn’t know me, and I’m not capable of loving anyone, and I’m sure they felt that.” She licked her lips. “Deep down, they must have known how…how messed up I was.”

Marek stared at her, sickened by her story of abuse, loss, and manipulation.

“It’s understandable that when Caden was killed, you wanted revenge. He protected you, loved you.”

“Loved me? He said he loved me. But I don’t think he really knew what that meant.” A single tear slid down her cheek.

She returned to the step, and Marek wrapped an arm around her and let her cry quietly against his shoulder.