Page 114 of Devour

“I just need some time. All of this is too much right now.” I wipe my eyes. I want to curl up in a ball and cry over the baby I lost, but my brother is still out there. “And there are other things you need to know. But I need you to remain as calm as possible so I can tell you what happened.”

He searches my face. He’s bracing himself, but he doesn’t know what’s coming. He has no idea.

“It’s Justin.” I hold his hard stare. “It’s always been Justin. Justin raped me.”

Fury overtakes Axl’s face, and his jaw tightens. His chest heaves from how hard he’s fighting to keep from flying off the handle.

I continue before he has the opportunity to say anything. “My brother has been drugging me and raping me for years.” I keep my voice steady because if I break now, I won’t get through all of it. “The nightmares aren’t just nightmares, Axl. He was raping me. I wasn’t fully aware he was doing it.”

“And this is what you’ve been keeping from me?” He grips the rail of my bed so hard that I think he’s going to break it. “Why were you dealing with this alone when you didn’t have to, baby?”

“I couldn’t tell you. A few days ago, I realized what he’d been doing, and he threatened me. Told me that if you knew, you’d kill him and Kynlee would go to auction.” I swallow hard. “And that you wouldn’t want me once you knew my brother had been fucking me.”

“He didn’t fuck you.” His voice is dangerously quiet. “He fucking raped you.”

“He’s lost it. He told me he loved me.” I force myself to keep going. “He said I’ve always been his. And he’s been reading my texts, Axl. He was intercepting your messages. He set up the whole thing with Tracy.”

Axl releases the bedrail. His hands drop to his sides, and his fists are clenched. The bandages are turning red where his knuckles are bleeding through.

“He tried to have you killed.” I watch his face when I say it. “The ritual. He gave those men weapons and adrenaline. He told me if you’d just died, none of this would have happened. He’s tried more than once, Axl.”

He groans and runs his hands down his face.

I can’t stop talking. I’m just going to get it all out. “I went to my dad.” My voice cracks because this is the part that still hurts. “I told him what Justin did. He said he’d protect me. He said he’d handle it. And then Justin showed up in our room and told me that Dad wasn’t going to help me. He told me that he had no choice but to kill me.”

I tell him every detail I can remember about what happened in our room with Justin and the conversation with my dad, including finding out that Axl visited him.

Once I’m done, Axl sits on the bed beside me. He takes my face in his hands, and his thumbs press against my cheeks. He looks at me with an intensity that I feel in my bones.

“I need you to hear me.” His voice is low and steady. There isn’t a trace of doubt in it. “I’ll always want you. There’s nothing that your brother or anyone else could ever do that would make me see you differently. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. That hasn’t changed. It’s never going to fucking change.”

I nod because I can’t speak. My tears fall onto his bandaged hands.

“Justin Carter is a dead man, Saylor.” He says it the way he says everything, like it’s just a fact. “I don’t care what it means to kill him. I’ll do what I can to help Kynlee, but we can’t let him live.”

“I don’t want him to live.” He raped me, which is bad enough. But he also caused an even more painful loss that I can never get back.

The door opens before either of us can say anything else. Priest steps in, and his eyes move from me to Axl and back to me. He doesn’t say a word about the destroyed cart or the supplies scattered across the floor.

“Dane is here.” Priest’s tone is serious. “He wants to talk to you.”

Axl doesn’t move from his spot and shakes his head. “Not right now.”

“It can’t wait, Axl.” Priest holds his stare, and there’s something in his expression that tells me this isn’t a request. “He said it’s urgent.”

Axl looks at me. He’s warring with himself over what to do. His jaw works, and his fists open and close at his sides.

“Go.” I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead. “Just rest and I’ll be back. Try to forgive me while I’m gone, because it’s going to get awkward fast when I have to force you to marry me.” He gives me a small smile, and the pain is still in his red eyes.

Then he crosses the room and leaves with Priest. The door clicks shut behind them.

The room is too quiet without him. The beeping from the machines is steady. I press my hand flat against my stomach where there’s nothing anymore.

I didn’t know. I didn’t feel any different. I’d been nauseous, but I thought that was due to everything else going on in my fucked-up life.

I curl onto my side and pull my knees toward my chest. I press my face into the pillow, and I let myself fall apart because there’s no one here to be strong for. Axl is down the hall doing whatever the fuck Dane needs him to do. Justin is somewhere out there breathing air he doesn’t deserve.