I release her roughly.
She just stares, frozen.
“Now stop crying like a child. Nothing’s happening to you.”
She blinks.
“Stupid, weak woman,” I grit out through my clenched teeth, then turn and leave the room.
Once in the corridor, I call Bruno and gesture toward her door. I follow him, stopping outside. He trots in, tail wagging. She drops to her knees, wraps her arms around him, and starts crying again.
Does she know how to do anything besides cry? I’m certain she doesn’t.She knows how to cry, and how to make everyone else furious doing it.
Stupid. Weak woman.
I walk back in. She looks up. Her face is a swollen, tear-streaked mess, and the sight of it makes something violent twist in my chest.
How dare she make me feel pity, when I haven’t allowed myself that emotion in decades.
“Give me the gun.”
And not just pity, another loathsome emotion flickers beneath it.Fear.I don’t trust her not to pull the trigger in another wave of panic.
She picks up the gun and holds it out to me. Her thin hands tremble. I take it. Her palm is flushed red from how tightly she’d clenched it minutes ago—threatening me.
Elowen
I know he doesn’t want to do those things to me. He’s never once looked at me that way. There’s no hunger in his eyes, no creeping intent. And he doesn’t touch me when he has the chance.
There’s no reason for him to lie. I’m in no position to bargain or fight—even if he admitted they planned to rape me, what could I do? The gun has proved useless to me.
I give him the weapon.
“What if those men go behind your back?” I ask quietly.
From the way he reacted when he broke that door down, I know they acted without his permission.
“The dead don’t come back,” he states flatly. “And no one will dare to go behind my back again.”
My eyes widen as the meaning dawns on me. He killed them. Even after what they tried to do, a strange heaviness settles in my chest.
“You didn’t have to kill them.”
“No one tells me what to do in my house. Especially not you.”
I lower my gaze and nod.
“Stop making that face,” he snaps.
I look up. “What face?”
He circles his finger in the air, pointing at my face. “That disgusting face—like something seriously bad is happening to you.”
I purse my lips. “If a near-rape experience isn’t bad for you, then I don’t know what is.”
His jaw tightens. “Starvation. Dehumanization. Skinning. Rape. Death.”
He speaks each word like it’s killing him.Has he been through all of this?I don’t think I’m allowed to ask. I don’t think I even need to. The hollowness in his hard eyes is answer enough.
