Page 96 of Always Yours

Her eyes darken as she props her chin in her hand, looking up at me from under her long lashes. “I’m not hurting you?”

“Not even in the slightest,” I answer her, taking her hip in my hand. “Don’t move an inch, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, a smile playing on those lips. “Not that I wanted to anyway.”

I take my controller, nodding as I say, “Good girl.”

I feel her laughter rumbling against my stomach, causing me to curl my toes. I want to throw my damn controller aside to take her right here. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, though. I worry I’ve demanded way too much already of her sweet pussy. I don’t want to break it or hurt her more than I already have. That would be tragic.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

I hadn’t even thought about tomorrow. The roster will be cut down by more than half, the next cut before Owen and Angela’s wedding. “Not at all.”

“You shouldn’t be, in my opinion.”

I smile at that. “The only opinion that matters.”

I sense she wants to say more, but she doesn’t, and I’m thankful for that. I don’t want to worry about hockey right now or even think about it. I want to lie here, in my perfect oasis with Austen, and believe everything will be fine. It has to be, honestly. I won’t accept anything else. As I play, though, something nags at me. I look down at her. “Does your grandpa know about the cult shit?”

She meets my gaze. “Yeah, he tried to save my mother from it, but my father really brainwashed her into believing what they said.”

I shake my head, not sure why anyone would subject themselves or, better yet, their children to that. “She didn’t want better for you guys?”

“I don’t know,” she says, and the pain is apparent in her voice. “I would talk about that a lot with my therapist because I didn’t understand how my mother could hold me down to be assaulted just to get in the good graces of the Grandmaster.”

My throat burns with anger as I hold her gaze.

“But she did the same to Louisa and Eliza. They were actually subjected to a lot more than I was. Louisa was forced to marry one of them, and he would tear her apart.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah, and she actually didn’t leave for a long time because Clara was still there, and we worried for her.”

Wow. My heart aches for these girls. “It’s crazy, because I assumed someone who experienced that kind of trauma would never want to even speak to anyone, but all of you are so lively.”

She thinks that over for a moment. “I left because I wanted to live. I told the girls the same. When we were there, we couldn’t be who we really were unless we were together. Even in the worst of times, when Eliza and Elliot would clean my wounds or Clara would dry my tears or Louisa would go to the Halo to distract the men from me, we were how we are now. But once we were around the men, or in the Halo, I think we all shut down to protect ourselves.”

I can’t even begin to describe the hate that fills my soul. “Did they get abused like you?”

“Not so much the younger girls, but Louisa and I bore the brunt of it. Eliza got her fair share, too, but it was nothing compared to what I got. They liked beating me, mainly because I wouldn’t cry.”

“You wouldn’t?”

She scoffs. “No. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.” Her eyes swirl with her haunting past. “I refused to be their victim. Even at such a young age, I fought tooth and nail.”

“How old were you when it started?”

“Eleven,” she admits, and my eyes widen. “But the truly bad stuff didn’t start until I was sixteen—the oral sex and the touching me in places no man should touch without permission. I only lasted four years before I convinced Eliza and Elliot to leave.”

“Four years?Of that abuse?”

“I was able to get away a lot and fight back. It just sucked ’cause then I’d get beaten by my mom or the Grandmaster.”

“I don’t understand how this can still be happening in the world we live in.”

“We were always on the move, and my peepaw tried to get the police involved when he’d find us, but the Grandmaster was very charming and could spin a story like no other. He controlled everything and everyone. He chose our clothes, how we did our hair, and even what shoes we wore. But most of all, he instilled fear in every woman in our compound but then met the desires of all the men. He’d preach that God willed him to do things like that so that our salvation would be protected. That a woman was made from a man’s rib bone to only serve men.”

“That’s barbaric and disgusting.”

---