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“If you want me to fuck you senseless again, all you need to do is ask. No need for weapons here,” he mumbles drowsily.
When I push the knife closer to his Adam’s apple, he finally becomes fully alert. To his credit, he doesn’t move an inch and lets me press the edge deeper into his skin without taking it away from me.
“You love me?” I ask, heart racing.
“Yes,” he replies without even a pause.
“I don’t believe you.”
His face maintains that blank expression of his that I hate, but it’s the glimmer of hurt in his silver eyes that tells me he’s still with me.
“If you love me, you won’t lie to me.”
He starts to protest, making the knife’s edge cut into his skin. It takes inhuman effort not to wince at the damage I’ve done, but I’m too far gone now.
“I know, Gray. I know,” I whisper on a choked sob.
His silver eyes turn to liquid metal. “And just what, exactly, do you think you know?” he questions.
“Everything and nothing. I know that Layla and I were placed at Mercy Village Group Home when I was younger. I know that while I was there, so were you. I know that you protected me, even when I didn’t know what I was being protected from. And I know… I know that they hurt you.”
When he tries to turn his head away from me, I drop the knife and cup his face, forcing him to look me in the eye.
“Tell me. No more secrets. No more lies. Tell me,” I beg.
“You should leave,” he tells me through gritted teeth. “I need you to go. Now.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You don’t get to say that to me. You don’t get to order me away just because it’s getting too real for you. Guess what? This” —I point to my chest then his— “is as real as it’s going to get. We’re real. And if you want us to have a fighting chance at all, you’ll give me the truth. All of it. I don’t care how ugly and heavy it is. I’ll willingly carry the load. But you’re going to have to meet me halfway and give me your truth, your pain, my wolf. I can take it.”
His entire body tenses beneath me, but he doesn’t push me away.
Like me, this omission has been eating him up inside, and it is finally time for it to see the light of day. I should have confronted him after we killed Master. I should have questioned him regarding the filth that sick fuck said to him as it happened. But I didn’t. Gray was too raw, too on edge, and I feared he might cast me away if I dug too deeply, much like he tried to do now by asking me to leave.
I won’t though. Nothing will make me leave his side, especially not after knowing the damage that was caused to him while he lived in that dreadful house. All I want is for him to share his burden with me, to stop protecting me and let me protect him for once.
“They hurt you, didn’t they?” I ask on a whispered breath, already knowing the answer. I watch him swallow down the lump in his throat.
“They did much worse than hurt me. They broke me.”
Hot tears well up in my eyes at the confirmation as the truth is finally set free. Just as I suspected, this is why he’s been so obsessed with that group home and killing off one pedophile at a time. They used him, sold him,broke him, and they would have done the same to me given the chance. The only reason I was left untouched was because my lone wolf stepped in the line of fire for me.
He protected me even then.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me? Why try to hide this from me?” I sob, letting my tears fall onto his bare chest. “Why not tell me that you knew me from there?”
“What good would it have done? You had forgotten me, and by forgetting me, you also forgot that nightmarish place. I couldn’t risk telling you and bringing back all those memories.” He runs the pad of his thumb over my cheek, drying up the errant tears. “Don’t cry for me, little doe. Knowing I had a hand in making sure you had a beautiful life was enough for me—isenough for me.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t come back for you. I knew in my bones that the fucking place was no good, and yet I left you there. I didn’t come back,” I cry, my tears streaming down my face.
“You were a child. You had no way of knowing or being able to save me.”
I shake my head. “No. I made myself forget because I couldn’t live with the fact that I left you there. The only friend I had. The only person who watched over me at night, making sure that those monsters wouldn’t hurt me. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Gray wraps his arms around me, and in one fell swoop, rolls me onto my back. With his body covering mine, he stares into my eyes, his silver moonlight gaze so soft and earnest it’s heartbreaking.
“Look at me, little doe,” he cajoles with the softest of timbres. “You couldn’t save me then, but you did save me in the end. I’m alive because of you. Every day since you left that rathole, I fought to get back to you. I fought the hands of monsters, and then I fought off soldiers of war. I did that with a big fucking smile on my face because I knew that you were living your best life.”
He kisses my lips so gently, his kiss feels like a feathered whisper. When I see his own eyes starting to water, I melt away in his embrace.
