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“They’re all healthy,” Caden says.

A sigh of relief escapes me, turning into a soft sob that worsens with every breath. I almost took my life before I met them. I could have passed from this world withoutspeaking to them. Without hugging them. Without ever letting them know they were loved by their mother.

My chest squeezes the air from every part of my body, making me dizzy. My limbs feel heavy, my lungs sore.

Caden sits me all the way up and rubs his hand in circles on my back, murmuring words I don’t quite catch. Something about breathing and it being okay.

But it’s not okay.

I almost robbed them of a mother. I almost did what vampires and werewolves have long done to us – crimes that we’ve demanded blood over. So how am I any better than them?

“I’m…sorry,” I rasp around air that won’t fill my lungs. It just sits heavily in my chest along with the tears and the pain and the guilt for both being alive and trying to die.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Sau.” A small noise of pleasure escapes him. “Do you know how often I’ve dreamed of saying your name? Sau…” As his one hand continues to stroke circles on my back, the other grips my hip and squeezes. “Sau.” He burrows his face into the side of my neck and exhales, hissoftbreathtickling a path ofgoosebumps up to my ear. “Sau.”

I stillin anticipation of hearing my name again. In all of my dreams, I never heard it, and hearing it now,saidlike a prayer, a word of awe cuts through some of my pain and panic.

He sees me. Wants me despite all the broken pieces, the shameful parts of me I let get marred by the touch of a werewolf.

He seesme.

Even though I can’t see myself anymore beneath all the cuts and bruises.

I grab hold of his belief in me like a piece of driftwood in a tumultuous sea. Grasping with cold fingers, numb with disbelief that there’s anything worth holding on to all theway out here. That I am worthsavingdespite all my faults…

Tears burn my eyes as he says my name again.

“Sau… Don’t let Antonio take anything else from you. Don’t let him take you fromme.You are mine, sweet girl.”

I cling to him, turning into his embrace and wrapping my arms around him.

“I understand if you don’t think you are strong enough, but you don’t need to be, Sau.I will be strong for you. I will take care of everything you need. I will wash you when you don’t have the energy. I will feed you when you forget to eat. I will keep you safe from ever getting hurt again, and it will be an honor, a pleasure to keep you as mine. Let me do this for you, my sweet Sau. Let me be your everything.”

I nod against his neck, my tears making his flesh wet. I need his strength. I cannot do this on my own.

He glides his fingers into my hair, tilting my head back all the way so he can kiss me. I keep my mouth closed, my tongue too sore to want to dance. He doesn’t push. Just rubs his lips against mine in soft gentle caresses. “Thank you, Sau,”Cadenmurmurs, and those three words nearly break me. He’s thankingme. When I’ve done nothing to deserve it.

I got myself raped, forever tainted by the touch of wolves. I stayed asleep like a coward while my family died all around me. And I nearly killed myself upon waking, too weak to live in this new world.

There is nothing he should be thanking me for.

But I stay quiet, trusting that he knows more than me.

That he can see something I can’t when he peers into the shattered glass of my soul.

Clinging to him in the darkness of my bedroom, I tell myself I am not alone.

I am not alone...

Twelve

CADEN

23July 1947

Shesleepsbeneath my desk, her head resting on my lap, her frail body curled against my legs. I can feel her shaking as she hides from the world, and I know shestillcan’t escape the torments of her mind –a twelve year old now suddenly awake in a forty-two-year-old body.

All night shethrashed with little whimpers, waking up sporadically to scream in fear and launch herself off the bed to crawl underneath it.Ibroughther back out with my telekinesis and held her until she fell asleep. Shedidn’tclose her eyes until she was in my arms,until she felt safe. But even then, she could not find peace.