Page 78 of Bound

“Oh my god,” I gasp out, my hand covering my mouth as the hideous truth of what I’m hearing registers. Tears sting my eyes, and my hand shakes, but I don’t stop the recording, listening to Kai’s sobs and laboured breaths, his uncle saying foul things, as he...as he abuses him.

There’s a final cry, part pleasure, part pain before the recording cuts off.

Tears stream down my cheeks as I look up, my whole body trembling.

“Kai?” Ash asks, voice cracking with pain. I turn to see that he too is pale, and looks ready to vomit.

“He stole my first orgasm,” I hear Kai say in a voice devoid of all emotion, my head snapping back to him. “I didn’t realise that he’d recorded it, sick bastard.”

Then he leaps up and with a roar like a wounded animal, he launches his tablet at the fireplace. He does the same to the laptop sitting at his side, then the coffee table, lamps, and side tables, until the floor in front of us is littered with debris.

I’m full-on shaking now, silent sobs wracking my body as I watch him break, jumping every time he throws something at the wall. The others sit ramrod straight, staring at him with anguish across their faces, their fists clenched, and breathing laboured.

Kai stops, like all the life has left him, and chest heaving, he sinks to the floor, unheading of all the shards of glass and pieces of wood that cover the floor. I lurch forward, as if to go to him, but Loki stops me, holding me tightly as I struggle.

“He’s hurting, Loki,” I beg, pleading with him to let me go. I still as Kai begins to talk.

“The first time, it was the day that we buried my parents,” he begins, looking at his trembling hands. “That night, he came into my room, climbed into bed with me, and–and what I thought was meant to be comfort, turned into something sick and twisted. I was ten years old.” He gives a sharp laugh, and I’m not the only one who flinches at the sound as it cuts into our hearts, leaving us bleeding. “He visited me every night from that night on, mostly touching himself, then moving on to touch me. That recording was, I think, the first time I came, his–his hand wrapped around my dick. I was thirteen.”

My breath stutters in my chest, horror leaving an acidic taste in my mouth at his words. The boys curse around me, but my eyes are fixed on Kai’s bowed head and his limp hands.

“By my fifteenth birthday, I was obviously too old for his tastes, probably helped that I’d been training hard, and so he could no longer force himself onto me.”

He looks up then, straight at me, his eyes those of a broken creature pleading for the pain to stop. My lip trembles, and my heart races as he speaks again.

“But he was right, you know. If I didn’t like it, why did I keep getting hard? Why did I come?”

And this time, Loki can’t stop me as I tear out of his grasp, uncaring of the pain in my feet as the sharp broken pieces of furniture pierce through my fluffy socks. I drop to my knees in front of him, useless tears coursing down my cheeks as I reach out to touch him, stopping short when I realise that he might not want to be touched.

“Can I touch you, please, my love?” I ask in a shaking voice, thick with sorrow.

“You want to touch me? After hearing that?” he questions, his forehead creased and his whole body slumped over as if too heavy for him to hold up any longer. My soul fractures into a thousand tiny pieces, scattering amongst the broken things that lay around us.

“I will always want you, Kai Matthews. Regardless of what some prick paedophile did to you when you were a child.” My voice is strong, full of anger at a world that would let this happen. At Julian for obviously knowing about it, but not stopping it. “And as for you wanting it, it was clear as day that you didn’t, Kai. That man took what was not freely given, and none of it was your fault. Do you hear me? None of it.”

His lip quivers, tears tracking down his flushed cheeks, his glasses gone. A deep mournful sob falls from his lips, and like a dam breaking, it’s followed by another, and another. Throwing my arms around him, I pull his body into mine, his own arms wrapping tightly around my waist as his body shakes with the force of his grief, his head buried in the crook of my neck.

My own vision is blurry as I look up to see Ash on his feet, tears falling down his own cheeks as he gazes at his friend, heartbroken. He comes towards us, wrapping his arms around Kai who just cries harder. I feel Loki come up behind me, and I look as he kneels, his face wet as he too wraps his arms around Kai and I, adding his comfort. I look up as Jax approaches, dropping to his knees in front of us, his jaw working, his eyes brimming with tears. He wraps us all in his huge arms, and we stay that way, holding tightly onto each other, as if we are the only thing stopping the others from floating away.

Eventually, Kai’s sobs subside, turning to quiet hiccups, and then silence. Lifting his head up, he looks into each of our faces in turn, his eyes red and face tearstained. He looks at Jax last, who takes Kai's face in his huge hands, bringing their foreheads together.

“We will bathe in his blood, brother. You will take what is owed in flesh and blood,” he tells Kai fiercely, and the tension leaves Kai’s body, a small smile tugging his lips.

Jax’s words should chill me. They should fill me with horror and disgust. But they don’t. My darkness relishes the idea of hurting the vile monster who stole from one of my soulmates. Who took a child’s innocence, and caused such pain and doubt in his heart.

We will all wash in his blood, and paint the walls red with it. As I look around at the faces of the men I love, body and soul, I see the vow etched there like carving in stone.

Kai’s uncle will die.

And we shall be the ones to kill him.

* * *

We all help to clean up the living room, waving off Kai’s apologies. Jax tends to our small wounds, taking extra care over Kai who has the most scrapes and grazes. Then I run Kai a bubble bath, getting in with him at his insistence, and letting him hold me as the warmth of the water surrounds us. Afterwards, we eat a simple meal of pasta with herby tomato sauce that Loki and Ash prepare, and then I head upstairs with Kai, who takes me to his room.

I realise as I walk in, that I don’t think I’ve ever really been in here before. It’s tastefully decorated in burnt umbers, reds, and browns, like leaves in autumn, and has pretty much the same furniture as all the others with the addition of a large dark wooden cupboard.

He gets dressed for bed in a pair of navy silk pyjama bottoms, leaving his chest bare. I put on my own navy silk nightdress, unintentionally matching him. Looking up, I’m suddenly unsure as to what happens next. I’ve never slept in a bed with Kai. Never spent the night in his arms.

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