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Chapter 16
Asher
My head was still groggy as I leveled a glare that could burn ice at our two prisoners. Fallon told me I ran two temperatures: blistering hot or painfully cold. At the moment, I was hot.
A fucking inferno.
The assholes had drugged me, drugged my team, and had attempted to kidnap Addie. The rage thrummed through my veins like pinpricks of white hot fire. Growing, growing, growing, until everything in the general vicinity was ablaze.
Frankly, I wanted to beat the information out of Shit Head One and Shit Head Two. Only that would pacify my need for vengeance.
But my temper? That could be cooled by only one person, someone who needed me to be level-headed. To love and protect her.
Addie snuggled beneath my arm, head resting on my shoulder, as she stared at Fallon’s large back towering over the two men.
I pressed my lips to her forehead, silently offering her my comfort. I was proud of my girl for fighting back and winning against two men twice her size though I wished she had escaped unscathed. The Shit Head One sized handprint on her face only fueled my incandescent rage.
“You okay, Sweetheart?” I asked, focusing on her and only her. The rest of the world fell away. Fallon, Declan, and Tamson demanding answers. Ronan and Ryder attempting to find Enzo. Nik and Tommy huddled together in the corner of the spacious room across the hall, under the watchful eye of Kai and Doc.
My family.
“Did you see, Ashy? I kicked their asses.” She sounded so fucking proud of herself, practically preening. If she was a cat, she would be strutting down the halls with her tail high and an imperious set to her chin.
“I’m so proud of you, my love.” I squeezed her shoulder at the sentiment.
Suddenly, her body went stiff beside mine, unnaturally still. Tension coiled her muscles.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I whispered, my lips brushing her scalp with each word.
“If they capture me…” When she trailed off, I put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up to gauge her expression. She furrowed her brows, red lips curling downwards. “If it’s my parents...I don’t want to go back to them, do you understand? You have no idea what they’ll do to me.”
My arms tightened around her.
I had a pretty fucking good idea.
Before I loved her, when she was just a kind, slightly insane girl at the resort, I had watched her parents implement a type of torture. They stripped her down as a form of humiliation and pressed her to the stove top.
Her screams…
The smell of burnt flesh…
The whites of her eyes before she mercifully passed out…
It haunted me for days. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe with the knowledge that she had been tortured by the people who were supposed to love her. I knew that wasn’t the only thing her parents did.
Rumor had it that men came to her room.
Bruises covered her milky white skin.
Slashes of a knife on her back.
Self-inflicted cuts on her arms and thighs.
Being in love with her only intensified the horror and rage. I would’ve felt anger for any girl forced to endure such torment, but knowing it’s the only girl I’d ever loved?
I would die before her parents got their sick, twisted hands on her again.
“They’re not going to get you, Sweetheart,” I vowed. Over my dead fucking body. Tenderly, I brushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear. Her sooty lashes fluttered closed, and she tilted her head so her cheek was pressing against my palm. Both of us reveled in the sensation of flesh on flesh. My thumb caressed her full bottom lip, soothing strokes against the sensitive skin.
