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Maya’s heart gave a squeeze of pain, remembering that they had more in common than she’d realized, but she shook her head, “This is an important part of who I am and I want you to hear about it from me just… bear with me?”
“Always.” He leaned down to press a kiss to her lips and she curled into his side.
With his reassuring heat beside her, his arm around her and the rest of the world blocked out by his broad shoulders, Maya finally found the courage to tell him the whole truth about what Maddox Clary had intended for her, a truth that she’d never been able to admit to anyone, not even her siblings. She didn’t want them to know how bad it had truly been, hadn’t wanted more of their pity and concern. But she trusted Zander with the truth because she realized that if there was anyone in the world that would understand, it was the man that fate had chosen for her.
Chapter Twelve
Zander was in absolute awe of the woman in his arms, of her strength and resilience, of her inability to see how special she truly was. That would be his new mission in life, he decided as he listened to her story. He would find a job here in Noir and he would figure out the living situation and how to be what Violet needed and he would learn the ins and outs of what it meant to be a shifter and part of the pack but none of that would be the reason he woke up every morning. No, Maya was his reason now and he was going to spend the rest of his life convincing her that she was beautiful and strong and powerful. Zander could see his future now and it made his heart swell with possibilities.
He wanted to spend every day from now to eternity making sure that nobody hurt Maya ever again.
The things she was telling him were hard to hear. There was no denying that. They were hard for her to admit. But he held tight to her and reminded himself that she had made it through and she was still here.
“He had no use for me. That’s what it really came down to. He had plans for Luna, to force a mating ceremony. He planned to use her to legitimize his status as Pack Alpha. He wanted Nova for her gift. Her sight had given him the information he needed to make his move before it was too late, even if she hadn’t known it at the time. They were the ones he wanted. He only kept me prisoner as a means of controlling them.”
Zander rested his chin on the top of Maya’s head and held her close. She had curled into his side as she related the story of how Maddox Clary had come to join the Crescent Pack and then went on to lead a coup to overthrow her father. When she’d told him about how her parents were brutally murdered in front of her, she had reached for him as if she needed his strength to keep her going. He had gripped her tight and he hadn’t let go, wouldn’t, not until she told him that he had to.
“I could have made it easier on myself. I know that now. But I was only a teenager then and I was so angry. I fought tooth and claw to escape. I hurt several of the traitors who helped him keep me caged but that only meant they upped the torture. He told them to keep me alive so they would beat me until I passed out, let me heal and then start again.”
Zander wanted to get his hands on the people who had hurt Maya. She’d assured him that they were all dead but he still wished that he could have been there to save her. She had fought with everything she had and it hadn’t been enough, not against a group of grown men wolf shifters. She seemed to think that somehow made her weak but Zander knew the truth. Anyone who had to cage and chain up a teenage girl in order to beat her unto submission was the weak one in that equation.
He hadn’t wanted to cut in or distract her from her memories but he couldn’t help himself now. She had paused, clearly lost in the memory and he thought asking might bring her out of the past. He had to know exactly how she had gotten those scars that ran up and down her arms and which he was certain there were more of hiding beneath her clothes.
“You healed from everything else… but what left the scars?”
Maya was quiet for another long moment before she spoke, her voice quiet but heavy, “A Bowie hunting knife.”
Zander sucked in an audible gasp of air. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say. He’d assumed a knife had to be involved. The scars were thin and with his own experiences he’d thought they were perhaps the work of someone wielding a blade but still, the description chilled him to the bone.
“It belonged to Maddox. He brought it with him from Texas when he came to the pack. He told me once that he’d used it to slit his sibling’s throat. I don’t know if that’s true or if he was trying to scare me. I don’t doubt that he was capable of killing his own family. But we were never able to find out much about his past before he came to Noir so I can’t be sure.”
“He was a psychopath.” Zander pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m so glad you survived him.”
“Only because he wanted me alive.” Maya shook her head, “If he’d wanted me dead, I would be. I could fight all the others but he never came near me without that knife.”
“He tortured you for fun?” He growled in disgust.
“He enjoyed it. That much I’m sure of. But no, not just for fun. Every day that Luna refused to marry him, he came and took his frustrations out on me. He knew I would heal but he cut deep enough and in the same places over and over again, until my body couldn’t regenerate. He wanted to mark me, to remind me that I was only alive because he allowed it, and I think he wanted to remind Luna and Nova that I’d been hurt because of their failure to give him what he wanted. He wanted that pain and guilt to last forever even if his torture couldn’t.”
“God, Maya.” Zander’s throat felt raw, “I’m so sorry.”
“I can still see the guilt in Luna’s eyes sometimes when she looks at me, like she’s counting the scars off for each day she resisted and blaming herself. Leo does it too, as if he didn’t come back to rescue us as quickly as he could.” Maya admitted softly. “After we were first saved, they’d cut all my hair off and I kept it short. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t ashamed of my scars. But I saw the way my siblings looked at me and I couldn’t put them through that every day. I grew my hair back out to cover the scars on my head and my temple. I wore long sleeves and pants even in the humid bayou summer. It took a long time before I felt comfortable enough not to cover the scars but it took them even longer.”
“I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you.” Zander stroked his thumb over a raised scar on her arm.
“It was. Some days it still is. Some days I wake up and I look in the mirror and all I can see are the marks he left behind and I have to remind myself that I didn’t survive just to hide away from the world and be scared. That’s not who I am. Not anymore.”
“Thank you for telling me your story. You’re incredible.” Zander shook his head when she started to say something, probably to argue with him. “You’re amazing, Maya DeLuca and I don’t know what I did to get so lucky to have fate say you’re mine but I’m so damn thankful you’re here and you’re a fighter and a survivor and I’ll do my best to be worthy of you.”
Maya looked like she wanted to argue with him but she bit her lip instead. He stroked a finger over the scar that slid from her hairline nearly to her ear on the left side of her face. He knew she wouldn't believe him if he told her that he thought her scars only made her more beautiful so he didn't bother, not yet. Maybe someday she would believe him, but not now. She reached up and took his hand in hers, drawing it awayfrom the scar and shaking her head.
"I'm not the only survivor here. You have scars of your own. You showed me some of them but I think there are probably more." Her dark eyes studied his face, serious and searching, "Will you tell me about them?"
As if he could deny her when she had just told him about the worst days of her life? Not a chance. His story was nothing compared to hers. She had been held captive and tortured while she feared for her life and the lives of her siblings. He, on the other hand, had never feared for his life, not even when his abuser seemed to have all the power because he'd known he was only worth something to them alive.
"What happened to me really isn't so bad compared to what you went through."
Maya pursed her lips, "This isn't a trauma competition. I just want to know who hurt you."
