Page 41 of The Dark Rising
He releases his own sigh and I narrow my eyes on him, watching him look into the fire with a frown on his face. “Do you believe her?” he asks, his gaze still on the flames.
“I do,” I tell him, my own eyes going to the fireplace as I take another drink, listening to the crackle of the wood.
His breath whooshes out of him in a rush, and he runs his hands down his thighs. “She’s a good woman,” he murmurs, and I tense, my eyes swinging to him in warning.
“You want her?” I practically growl the question, my body locking up to prepare to slit his throat there and then, uncaring what he means to Rhea. Even if she’s pissed at him right now.
His wide, gray eyes come to me, sputtering until he finally gets the words out. “Fuck no. No, no, no.” I arch a brow at him. “Not that anyone wouldn’t be lucky to have her, she’s great.” I frown, possessiveness rising within me. “Gods,” he sighs, “this isn’t going well.” He leans back in his seat, his brows drawn together. “She’s like my sister, we may not be blood related, but we treat each other as siblings. She’s important to me.”
My eyes narrow. “Yet you let her bare herself to us, guilted her into it. I heard what you said to her.” He hangs his head, shame spreading across his face. Good, the asshole deserves to feel like shit for what he did.
“I don’t know why I did that. I just needed you all to see we aren’t the bad guys here, and we needed something, anything to give us some kind of hope that you can help us. Even if we didn’t want it, even after what you have done.” His hands fist in his lap. “We are nothing compared to the Elites and the Highers, anything we would have attempted would have been suicide, I realized that too late after I directed my anger at Rhea. We needed help, she needed help, and in that moment, that was the only way I could think how to.”
“There could have been other ways” I snap, and it’s his turn to raise a brow.
“I don’t think there could have been anything else we could have done to convince you. You didn’t listen at Wolvorn Castle, you didn’t listen in Eridian. The price of you nowhearingus is high, especially for Rhea,“ he mumbles and my shoulders lock. “I did that to her, and although you believe her now, believe us, I wonder if the cost was too much for her to bear, never mind myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if she never speaks to me again.” His words come out pained. Good.
“I rather she wouldn’t.” All the better if she hates him.
“There is nothing going on between us, you don’t have to get possessive over her, but we are close, or…we were.”
“You had your dick in her, what’s to say you don’t want her again.” My eyes flash black at the thought, Drax growling within me.
He scowls. “How the fuck do you know that?” I keep my stare blank, and he huffs. “It was a one-time thing, and I did that for her. Gods, it was barely anything. A quick in and out.”
Now I scowl. “Are you telling me you just shoved your cock in her and that was that.” If this bastard hurt her…
“You could put it like that, I guess.” He shuffles in his seat, uncomfortable. “I took care of her, I was gentle and that was it. She wanted it over with and trusted me to do that, and I did. I’m not sorry for it, not when her reason was that she wanted it to be her choice, well as much as she can. She was scared the Highers or her family would find her, and that choice would be taken away. How could I not help her?”
My hand clenches around the cup, hating that she thought she had to choose him to be her first, over being fucking raped. It should have been me, it should have been mine, and they took that choice away from both of us.
“I would do anything for her,” he whispers.
“Sounds like more than brotherly love to me.”
He shakes his head. “For fuck’s sake. It’s not, I don’t see her that way. She’s like my sister. No way would I do that again, even if she asks it of me. Especially not now.” His gaze goes back to the fire, and I read between the lines.
Not now since Sarah it seems. I saw the way he watched her at Wolvorn Castle, the desperation in his eyes as she stood in front of the Highers with her father. I thought she was scared to be around the pack that had taken her. Now, I see it differently.
I take another drink, my glare still on the side of his face, trying not to rip it off at the thought of his dick anywhere near her.
“Rhea is the strongest person I know, but right now, she needs more than just herself. When I first rescued her from our old pack, she was a mess. Bloodied, cut, burned, slashed, thin, weak.” He releases a shaky breath, his eyes turning cloudy. “I could go on and on about her injuries, tell you in detail of every single fucking mark they put on her body. You only saw the aftermath, I saw it first hand. Even so, she still stood tall, held Kade in her arms, and she still killed to help us survive as we escaped out of the Aragnis Pack.”
My body reacts uncontrollably to the thought of her like that, and a growl builds up in my chest, I’m barely able to swallow it back down. I hate what’s she’s doing to me, but I can’t fucking help myself.
“How did you find her in the basement?” I ask him, trying to calm my rage, my regret.
“It was by chance,” he sighs. “By fucking sheer luck. I’m an orphan, my parents were killed when I was young and I was always around Rhea’s parents’ house. They kind of took me in, but I didn’t stay at their house. I lived with some other orphans, but I knew that house like it was my own. After Paul told the Aragnis pack that Alpha Derrik and his mate had died with Rhea, I was distraught. They were my chosen family, and I like to think they chose me too for the time we had together. It was coming up to what would have been Rhea’s eighteenth birthday. I was still grieving their loss after so many years, so I went to their old home. I don’t know why I did, I just wanted to be close to them again. The basement had a small, long window that Rhea and I used to sneak out of to play, and I wondered if Alpha Paul had put their belongings down there as I never saw anything leave that house. I thought maybe I could find something of them, something small that I could keep.” His hands tremble as he shakes his head. “I found Rhea instead.”
I drain my cup in one go and listen to him, listen to him tell me all about what happened at her old pack, her home, and I feel the walls closing in. Feel the rage building once again as I stand quickly and go to grab another drink.
He continues. “She was in a cage, bloody from what I could tell as it was so dark, only a small lantern on a table. I didn’t know who it was at first, I was shocked, mortified that Alpha Paul had someone down there, I didn’t understand. Was it a prisoner? A pack member being punished? I didn’t know but I wanted to see who it was, so I managed to get the window open and get inside. It was quiet, the air suffocatingly still, like death lingered there. The person in the cage wasn’t moving, and didn’t react to my presence at all. Just laying still on the floor. I thought they were dead. It wasn’t until I eventually went up to the bars, crouched down that I saw someone who I thought had been dead foryears.”
I pour another large drink, also knocking it back in one go before filling it up again and moving back to my seat. Josh’s eyes are on the wall, locked in his memories and I can only imagine what Rhea looked like at nearly eighteen, locked in a cage for years. His story matches what she told me about being in her basement.
“I managed to reach through the bars and gently shake her awake. It’s like she didn’t see me at first, her eyes were dead, cold, full of so much fucking pain. Then she whispered my name and tears fell from her eyes, and I vowed I would get her out of there. I didn’t understand how she was alive, why we were told she was dead, why the fuck she was in a cage?” he growls, his body tensing. “At that moment it didn’t matter, I just needed to get her out of there. Over the next two weeks, I visited her as much as I could, and that’s when she told me bits of what happened the night everything went to shit. It would be years though until I got the full story out of her, though I don’t know everything. What she told you all in the dining room, some of that was new to me too, about how they…” He trails off and my fingers tighten around my cup.
How they raped her. How they shoved their dicks in places it wasn’t wanted, how they touched her with hands that shouldn’t have.
