Page 101 of The Bastard Prince

I only had personal space if he chose to give it to me.

"You are a strong woman. I do not understand this –" He shook his head and growled. "What is going on with you?"

"I don’t know," I admitted, trembling. "I think I might be crazy."

"You are," he assured me, lips twitching into a ghost of a smile. "That is not news to me,mi reina."

"Are you going to lock me up again, Trig? Once we get inside?" Blinking back the tears filling my eyes, I stared up at him and whispered, "Are you going to cage me?"

Trigger's eyes darkened, if that was even possible, and a vein ticked in his neck. "I have never caged you."

"But youhaveraped me." The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to take them back.

I wasn’t even sure why I wanted to take them back.

It was the truth.

He raped me in that fucking room they strung me up in tonight.

I couldn't understand why I felt guilt over speaking the truth.

Did he?

Did he really, Ashton?

Think about this, Ashton.

Trigger flinched and dropped his hand from my face.

Shifting to the far end of the seat, he nodded stiffly. "Sí."

"I didn’t mean–"

"Don’t say it," he quickly cut me off. "It is the truth."

"I wish it wasn’t."

"The past cannot be changed," was all he replied.

He didn’t speak to me after that and I was glad.

I couldn’t seem to find my way out of my thoughts and being out of the compound was confusing me. I was on a sensory overload with new sights, sounds, and smells.

All of the new sensations thrashing through me, combined with the agonizing pain I was currently experiencing, pushed me to a dark place in my mind.

A part of me wanted to fall on my hands and knees right here in this car and beg Trigger to forgive me for my accidental treason that night, and then have him take my memories away.

Because I could handle a lot of things in this life, but I couldn't handle all of the things at the same thing.

I needed an anchor.

I neededmyTrig. Not the man sitting beside me. I needed the old him. Sure, this version of him had protected me, and to a point, I trusted him, but it wasn’t the same.

It wouldneverbe the same again and the knowledge crushed me.

He would never love me like before and I would never get past what he did to me in front of those men.

"We are here," Trig announced when the car pulled to a stop outside my father's mansion. He turned to look at me, hand hovering over the door handle. "I kept my promise to you." He swallowed deeply and gave me a stiff nod. "You are home, Ashton Northwood."

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