A yelp escapes me. My arms jerk down instinctively, but Salvatore has already stripped the tops right off me.
He stares at my chest. My other matches fall silent as they follow his gaze.
My hands fly up to try to cover the scars that mottle my sternum and the upper swell of my breasts, but Salvatore catches my fingers. A feral smolder forms in his eyes that sears into his voice as well.
“What the fuck happened to you, mia amata?”
Forty-Eight
Elodie
I’ve been much more naked with this man before, but I’ve never felt as exposed as I do right now. Every pinkish mark etched into my skin prickles with the awareness of Salvatore’s gaze—and those of my other three matches.
Cole’s voice has roughened. “Those don’t look like the scars on your back. Some of them—did somebodydrawthose into you?”
Byron speaks more quietly, but there’s a ragged quality to the hush. “You’ve been keeping those scars covered. You didn’t want us seeing them, even after— What are they from, Elodie? Was the attack in your old world worse than you said?”
I wish it was that simple. My lips part, but no words form on my tongue. A burn creeps into the back of my eyes.
Salvatore unzips his own hoodie and wraps it around my shoulders, as if he can ward off the chill that’s stillmostly coming from inside me. His gaze sweeps over the mottled lines on my chest again, and the fury in his gaze flares hotter. “You don’t need to hide anything from us, Elodie. We’ll deal with whatever we need to. Who did this to you?”
A few possible lies flit through my head, but each only makes me queasier.
I’ve hated every lie I already told. And now the last horrible pieces of my past are colliding all around me…
How long could I really keep this secret anyway? I managed for three years with my original matches because they saw me as a fragile victim, because they were afraid to push me after my loss.
And because I never felt comfortable enough with any of them to slip up the way I just did with Salvatore.
I hug his hoodie around me, my fingers tightening against the thought of revealing the violence I’ve dealt out. But I let him look after me for a reason, didn’t I?
The four men around me have made their own mistakes and hurt me in little ways… but when push has come to shove, they’ve always had my back. When I told them the biggest regret of my life, they rallied around me rather than discarding me—even Cole.
They’re working so hard to be the best matches I could ask for.
What kind of mate am I to them if I lie right to their faces?
I lift my gaze, tamping down on the urge to cringe away from the furor in Salvatore’s expression. “I did it to me.”
His eyebrows draw together, confusion watering down the intensity of his anger. “You—what?”
Asher’s gentle voice wraps around me from where he’s standing beyond Salvatore’s shoulder. “Why don’t you tell us about it, Elodie?”
As steady and calm when he asked me to lay out my planfor tonight. Trusting me just as much as I want to trust them.
The tears spill over before I can catch them. I suck in a hitch of breath and swipe at my eyes, and Salvatore wraps his arms right around me with a protective growl.
“Whatever it is, we can handle it,” he promises into my hair.
“We just want to understand,” Byron adds.
Cole makes a disgruntled sound. “Shouldn’t we let her sit down and give her a little space to decide what she wants to say?”
Salvatore lifts his head to aim a scowl at the older guy, but he guides me over to the sofa. As I sink onto the middle cushion, still clutching his hoodie around me, he and Byron flank me. Asher takes the adjacent armchair, and Cole looms over us all like a stern sentinel.
They wait silently, but I can feel Salvatore’s impatience for answers like a hum in the air. I can’t exactly back out of answering now.
Maybe I never should have tried to avoid the questions in the first place, even if Uncle Nik had never reappeared. Even if it never mattered in any way other than the rot of regret eating away at me.
