by Eva Ashwood
My heart thunders in my chest. I haven’t seen that kind of wrath in Hale since the night his father died. That night, his anger and pain nearly overwhelmed him, a beast rising up inside him like a feral animal.
I hate that my mother’s actions are twisting the knife in his heart.
But I can’t give in on this.
After a few seconds of silence, Ciro gets up and follows after Hale, presumably to talk him down. Now alone with Zaid and Lucas, I can’t think of anything else to say. All the air seems to have been sucked out of the room.
“He’ll come around,” Lucas says softly. “Eventually.”
“I know.” It’s all I can manage.
“He’s just protective,” Zaid mutters. “Like all of us. We only want the best for you, and when he sees that this is the best thing, he’ll respect that.”
“Do you think it’s best?” I twist a little on the couch to see him better.
He blows out a breath, shaking his head. “Fuck. I hate to use the word ‘best’ and ‘Camilla’ in the same sentence. But what you said makes sense. It may only be the best out of an array of entirely shitty options, but that still makes it better than any of the others.”
“And it has to be your choice, Grace,” Lucas adds. “None of us have to like it, but we can’t take the decision away from you. Hale respects you enough to know that. Just give him time.”
I offer them a small smile, more for their sakes than my own. A smile feels foreign, unwanted on my face, like a stranger. How long has it been since I’ve smiled—truly, genuinely?
Rising from the couch, I walk over to Lucas and press a kiss to his lips, allowing myself to find some solace there, an ounce of comfort. His hands frame my face, lingering on my jaw even as we break apart. Stepping away, I turn to kiss his brother the same way, breathing in his vanilla and musk scent.
“You okay?” Zaid asks, looking down at me as his fingers run through my hair.
“No.” I give him a wan, tired smile. “But I will be. We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay? You’ll… help me with Hale?”
He gives me a lopsided grin. “Kitten, I don’t think you’ll need help. I’ve seen you go toe-to-toe with that man, and I think you’re one of the only people in the world who can. Besides, he’ll come around to it on his own. He just—” His grin slips, his eyes growing serious as he tugs me a little closer. “He’s still recovering from Damian’s death. He doesn’t want to lose you too.”
“I don’t plan on getting lost,” I whisper.
“Good. Because we wouldn’t survive it.”
He kisses me one more time, and unlike our last kiss, which was soft and comforting, this one is hard, almost vicious. It makes me realize in a rush that everything Hale is feeling, these two men are feeling too. Maybe Ciro as well. They all just deal with it in their own ways.
I grip his shirt, rising up on my tiptoes to give back as good as I get, like I’m trying to prove that I’m not going anywhere.
When we break apart, I feel his body shudder slightly. He releases me and I step back. It’s only early evening, and part of me wants to stay down here, wrapped up in the embrace of these two men. But my head is a mess, and I know I can’t just fuck it away this time.
I need space. I need to think. To truly process what it could mean if I accept my mother’s demand and agree to meet with her.
“Goodnight,” I murmur. Then I leave them behind in the room and make my way back to my own.
The first thing I do is turn on the shower as hot as it will go, wincing as I step under the spray. Even though I didn’t touch Leland’s body, I still feel dirty somehow, imaginary streaks of blood clinging to my skin.
I stand under the water until the steady stream grows cool, then tilt my face directly up toward the spray, blocking out the world. When I finally emerge from the shower, my skin is pink and scrubbed raw, but my head doesn’t feel much more clear.
Still, I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep just moments after my head hits the pillow.
8
Ciro
We’re all under different types of stress. Different types of pressure.
None of us had any clue when we stole Grace from that church on her wedding day that things would end up like this.
Damian dead.
Camilla alive.
Dozens of questions still unanswered.
I leave Hale alone in the office, knowing that nothing else I say is going to change his mind. He has to think things through himself. We know he’s just trying to protect her, but she can’t hide from who she is forever.
And Hale can’t protect her from everything. None of us can.
As long as she’s here, one of us, she’ll have to face the same things we face. She’ll have to step into roles that we play all the time. He’ll see it’s for the best to have Grace and Camilla meet, even though the thought makes even me wince.
I hesitate on the landing of the stairs, debating whether or not to go back into the living room where I left Grace, Zaid, and Lucas a couple of hours ago. I left them less to comfort Hale and more to get out of my own head, work through my own shit.
It’s getting harder to resist Grace.
I slump down onto the stairs, sitting on one of the steps and resting my elbows on my knees. I haven’t had time to think lately, haven’t had time to deal with anything but what was in front of me in each moment.
When Leland was still alive, I hardly knew myself, half the time stuck in that place in my head where time doesn’t exist, where everything around me is a shadow. When I go to that place, it’s like walking through a pit of heavy darkness with only my fucking demons for company.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I finally came back. Fully. Completely myself. Downstairs in the living room, I woke up again to everything around me—the last of the demons slinking back into their shadows, waiting for the next time they could take hold of me.
For the first time in days, I saw clearly. Thought clearly. Felt clearly.
And the first thing I thought of was Grace. The first thing I saw was Grace. The first thing I felt was Grace.
Like snapping back into my own body at full speed, I’m consumed by her all over again. When I handed her that drink, she looked different than I remembered her looking just a few days ago. More sad, more worn down. Tension that shouldn’t be allowed to touch her now consumes her, the weight of the world pressing heavily down on her. My heart felt like it might punch a hole through my chest with the need to comfort her. To help her or to fix her somehow.
But I couldn’t. I can’t.
Because if I touch her, I’ll break her.
If I let myself near her, I’ll hurt her. And worse than that is the way she looks at me—as if she knows. As if she understands. As if it breaks her heart.
The last thing I want to do is break her heart.
Jesus. I’m so fucked up.
I scrub a hand down my face, then surge to my feet, shaking my head to clear it.
When I finally get back to the room, it’s empty. I didn’t really expect to find anyone since it’s late and we’re all fucking exhausted, but a small part of me wanted Grace to still be here. Waiting for me.
And yet, the other half of me is relieved she isn’t.
It’s the constant war of my heart, my body, my mind.
Wanting Grace. Not having Grace.
I can’t have Grace.
My feet carry me through the house—wandering the place like a lost animal, lost in my own head, consumed by my own thoughts.
When I find myself walking past Grace’s room, my feet stop of their own accord. I stare at the dark wood for a moment, then turn the doorknob and give the door a push, opening it silently. The lights are off, but the curtains are open, letting a small beam of moonlight into the room to keep the darkness at bay. She dozes on the bed, her hair splayed out on the pillow.
My rational mind, or what’s left of it, tells me to go. It screams at me to run away and never come back, i
But the other side of me, the side that’s fascinated by her light, drawn to it more strongly than I’ve ever been drawn to anything else, won’t let me leave. Even after all the shit she’s been through, there’s something about Grace that reminds me of sunshine. And just like sunshine, she draws me toward her, tempting me with her warmth.
My gaze sweeps over the curves of her body, so soft and perfect. She’s wearing a tank top and thin cotton pants, and the small sliver of bare skin at her waist taunts me, teasing me with the memories of things I shouldn’t be thinking about again.
Watching Hale fuck her. Watching him put his hands where I told him to, touch her the way I wanted to but couldn’t. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than Grace on all fours, her back arched and her head thrown back, pure ecstasy bleeding across her features as she came.
My cock strains in my pants, and I grit my teeth at the desperate ache in my balls. I need to be the one who fucks her, not Hale. I need to be the one to touch her, the one to taste her, to bring her to the brink, to hear those noises she makes—those little moans and cries that haunt me.
I’ll never fucking forget those sounds.
My gaze sweeps up her body, her stomach, her breasts. Her neck and shoulders, the dip of her throat. Her chin. Her mouth—
Shit.
I jerk back, startled to find her hazel eyes open and glinting in the dim light that streams through the window. They’re a little glassy from sleep, but they’re clear and alert as she holds my gaze. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I can fucking imagine.
“I’m fucked up,” I mutter under my breath. “Goddammit, Grace. I’m sorry, I’m fucked up, I shouldn’t—”
A rush of shame and self-loathing consumes me as I turn around, desperate to leave. She wasn’t supposed to see me here. She wasn’t supposed to know I still want her. How much I still need her.
I was supposed to keep a distance. Leave her the fuck alone.
“Wait.” Her quiet words cut through the darkness. “Don’t leave.”
My body betrays me. It obeys her, a slave for her just like my fucking heart is. Stuck between the door and the bed, I can’t move.
“Ciro,” she says slowly, “please come back.”
There’s something in her voice that makes me turn around and glance over at her on the bed.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” she says quietly. “And I wish you wouldn’t.”
I grit my teeth, hating the note of pain I can hear in her words.
“You don’t want to avoid me though.” She presses up onto her elbows, still looking at me. “I know you don’t, or you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I shouldn’t have—” I start again, but she cuts me off.
“Yes, you should. I don’t like when there’s distance between us, Ciro. It hurts me to see you holding yourself back from what I think you want. What I know I want. I’m not afraid of you, and I never will be.”
“That’s a mistake.”
“Why? Because you might hurt me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to hurt me?”
I swallow, my throat dry. “No.”
“Then why don’t you trust yourself around me?”
“Because I…”
I trail off, my gaze flicking down to my hands. Hands that once wrapped around her throat, squeezing her windpipe as my fucked-up mind screamed at me that she was the enemy.
“I don’t understand it all,” she says quietly when I don’t finish my sentence. “But I understand better than I once did about how that loss of power and control can fuck you up in the head.” She grimaces. “Honestly, I’m still reeling from the rug being yanked out from under me. I don’t know who or what I can believe in. What aspects of my life are real, and which parts are lies.”
Hurt flashes across her face. Drawn by the impulse to comfort her, I take a few steps forward, closing the distance between us a little. She doesn’t flinch away from me. She doesn’t pull me closer. She stays where she is, not moving.
“You once told me something I’ll never forget,” she continues in her soft whisper. “You told me that I was a survivor. That I had survived.”
The reminder brings a fresh wave of awareness through my body, remembering the circumstances of what she’s referring to—the shower. Her wet, naked body against my clothes, sticking to my own skin. Hardly knowing what to do, but for once, letting the instinct that trauma had buried take over me.
“I think you forget that you’re a survivor too, Ciro.”
My eyes snap to hers, surprised when they glisten in the light. Her voice is so steady it hardly betrays any emotion, but I can see pain in her expression.
It’s not pain for herself though, I don’t think.
It’s for me.
“And if your captivity fucked you up in the head?” She shrugs, her golden hair shifting around her shoulders. “If that trauma stayed with you? That doesn’t make you any less of a survivor.”
My knees are weak, my whole body strangely weak. I take another few steps toward her. I want to sit on the bed with her, but instead, I stop at the edge of the mattress, close enough that the heavy blanket brushes against my knees. Close enough to feel the comfort of her words. Her presence.
“Are your night terrors…” She hesitates, pausing. “Do you have them often?”
I never talk about this shit. Only with Hale, and only because I had to make sure he knew how to handle me if he couldn’t snap me out of it. But for some reason, my mouth opens, and I find myself answering.
“Yes. I don’t have control over them. Nothing stops them.”
I’ve tried things, but I’ve given up. Drugs make them worse. Alcohol makes them worse. People… I grit my teeth, remembering what happened the one time I allowed myself to fall asleep in Grace’s arms.
“What are they about?” she asks gently. “The dreams? The nightmares?”
I give her a sad glance, because she knows I can’t tell her that. I’ve never told them to anyone, and the flashes of recurring night terrors that slip through my mind are nothing anyone else should have to live through, let alone hear about.
But I want to tell her. I want to tell someone.
I’ve never wanted to tell someone before.
“Loss of… control,” I say, the words catching in my throat. “You’re right. I’m afraid of losing control.”
I swallow, thick and heavy, a clammy chill creeping over my skin as images race through my head. I hate sleeping. Of all the things I’ve lived through, I’m not scared of the torture anymore, or the pain. But sleep? That’s where I lose the battle against the darkness. I lose control over my mind, and my mind reminds me all over again that I’m fucked up.
That the demons inside me are more powerful than I am.
“Ciro,” Grace murmurs. It’s too soft. Too sweet. But when I start to glance at the door, seeking some escape, she calls me back to her. “Look at me, Ciro.”
Clenching my jaw, I look back down at her.
Moving slowly, purposefully, she lies back on the bed. Then she reaches up, the thin straps of her tank top shifting slightly as she grasps the headboard with her hands.
“I won’t move.” Her knees fall open slightly, that space between her thighs taunting me, tempting me. “I won’t move unless you tell me to.”
I force myself to meet her gaze, to find something in her eyes—anything that tells me she’s not being serious, that she’s only doing this for my sake, that she’s still scared of me. That I’m going to break her.
Her hazel eyes gleam in the darkness, burning with desire. And even more terrifying, with trust.
“It’s all up to you, Ciro. You can do whatever you want.”
9
Grace
Ciro stares down at me, blinking in the dim light.
I can’t quite read his expression, and my heart thuds in nervous anticipation as I grip the metal bars of the headboard tightly.
Honestly, I don’t know if this was the right call, the right move. Maybe I’ve totally misinterpreted things, and Ciro really doesn’t want to be with me—not because he thinks he can’t or doesn’t trust himself, but because he’s just not that interested.
Or maybe he is interested, but this is asking too much, pushing him too far.
I don’t fucking know, and as the seconds tick by and he doesn’t move, I start to get more and more worried.
But I meant what I said. I want him. Not just his body, but his mind and his heart. I made this offer willingly, and the least I can do is make sure he knows I mean it—and that there’s no time limit on it, no qualifiers or conditions.
He can do whatever he likes.
He can touch me.
He can leave the room.
No matter what he decides, I won’t stop him. I want him to see that he can be trusted to make those decisions, trusted to be in control.
So I keep my hold on the cool metal, and I wait.
Finally, Ciro moves. He sits down on the bed next to me, the mattress shifting beneath his weight. One large, inked hand reaches out and grazes lightly over the curve of my hip, trailing down the outside of my thigh.
I shiver, and I know he feels it. But other than that slight tremor, I don’t move.
“I’m not afraid,” I whisper quietly.
Maybe if I were smarter, I would be. Maybe I should cling to the memory of the way his hands felt around my throat, reminding myself constantly what Ciro is capable of. But that person? The one who attacked me so viciously? It wasn’t Ciro. It’s not who I’m looking at now. The man I’m looking at now would do anything to protect me—including fight against his own instincts, keeping himself at arm’s length when that’s not what either of us really wants.
-->