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“Fuck. I can’t any longer. I can’t, Abbs.”
I stood and kicked the collapsed coffee table across the twelve-by-ten room. “Jesus, let me fuckin’ breathe.” I turned and slammed my fist into the drywall, leaving a gaping hole into the pantry.
Suffocating. My chest so tight it felt as if my lungs were collapsing. By denying what she wanted, I was the one putting her through hell.
I paced back and forth across the worn-out hardwood floor, hand raking through my hair.
I watched her suffer night after night as she screamed and flailed against the chains, eyes blazing.
She wanted one drop of blood to ease her thirst—one drop. And time and again I denied her and was subjected to her hatred, which soon turned to begging then finally sobbing.
It repeated for hours like a broken record, over and over again until finally, near dawn every day, she collapsed into an exhausted sleep.
The Abby I’d known had disappeared behind glazed red eyes. I was afraid she was too far gone, that any hope of her surviving was pointless.
I’d never given in to anything in my life, but witnessing Abby’s torture any longer was beyond even my capability.
“God, Abbs, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I stared out the bay window onto the lake.
The serene morning calm of the water was laughing at my riptide of emotions. I’d rather be whipped until my back was raw or water boarded until I drown. Fuck, I’d switch places with her if I could. Anything but this. Because this was far worse. It was her pain, and I had no control over it. I couldn’t stop it.
I hated that I wasn’t strong enough to withstand this. Most of all, I hated that I cared enough to want to stop her pain.
Because I knew.
I knew one certainty in all this.
She had managed to touch a piece of my heart.
I had to do something.
I took out my cell. Pressed nine. Then closed my eyes and put it to my ear.
“Yes.” The cold, unemotional voice answered.
“Need your help.”
“Oh!” I stumbled back a step as I came face to face with the most handsome, yet scariest, man I’d ever laid eyes on. Eyes ice blue, sculpted cheeks and chin, shaved head, and a snake tattoo on his neck. And he was built, like seriously worked out built.
“Sorry. I thought this was the women’s….” I glanced over my shoulder at the sign. “Umm, I think you have the wrong—”
“You must be Rayne.” He offered his hand.
My eyes went from his captivating eyes down to the vivid tattoo then over his broad, muscular shoulders to his arm that was stretched out toward me.
Delara stepped out of the dressing room, holding her clothes in one arm and her dress up with the other. “This is Waleron.”
My eyes darted over his left shoulder where Delara looked uncomfortable and tense with tightly pursed lips as she moved to lean against the frame of the stall.
“Oh.” Oh, my God. This was the guy who paid for my therapy. What the Scars called their Taldeburu. And he definitely had that leader look to him with his confident stance and penetrating blue eyes.
I hesitated before shaking his hand, but when I did, I wished I hadn’t. A strange wave of energy tingled through me, and it wasn’t warm. God, it was empty. As if a bolt of cold vibration shot through me then vanished. “Umm, nice to meet you. And thank you for the help.”
He nodded. “My pleasure. I was informing Delara that—”
“That he was leaving. Weren’t you?” Delara placed her hand on Waleron’s arm and both of them tensed. Was that from her touch or because she interrupted him?
