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After Victoria had found him, her father and uncles hadn’t been done with him. Not until he told them everything of his past and his father’s smuggling empire—along with everything illegal he’d ever done.
They had unlocked him from the wall, though. Ceased the beatings. That was helpful.
The whole of them working toward a common goal in some twisted way. Victoria’s happiness. Her future.
He’d held back bits and pieces, of course. Enough to shield the identities of those that needed to be anonymous. Even in the suspect world of smuggling and illegal trade, there were men with honor that deserved to escape prosecution.
Loyalty to his past dictated that.
As for his own sins, they were laid out, an open book for Des, Reiner, Lachlan and Roe.
It wasn’t until three days after Victoria had found him and he was still locked in the undercroft that Rafe realized there was redundancy in their system—each of those four men were completely and unconditionally loyal to the others, and if one was felled, the others could step in and ensure that the family didn’t suffer.
It was all about protecting their women, their children.
He had to respect that.
Especially now that he understood it.
Day four found him dragged up through the castle and into the daylight.
Still sequestered in the empty wing of Seahorn. But delivered to a much cozier room than before. Cozier because Victoria was waiting for him with bandages and a steaming bath.
The bath was the thing that had surprised him.
That everyone in the castle, all her guardians, had accepted that his body—naked or not—was hers to do with what she wanted.
Not that he’d been in any shape to touch her, which they probably understood was its own form of torture.
Three broken ribs. Two broken fingers. A pinky toe that would never hold weight again. A broken arm. He wasn’t sure how many breaks were along his nose, other than it now had several crooked bumps that would never go away. Numerous cuts healing to scars—too many to count.
All that, but he was the luckiest man in the world.
Two weeks had passed since he’d been delivered into Victoria’s arms, and aside from the healing breaks, his body had started to function normally again.
Three short, yippy barks echoed along the stone corridor outside his room and a moment later, Fox came bounding around the corner of the doorway, running to the side of the bed and setting his paws on the side of the mattress, looking for Rafe’s hand.
Rafe dropped his fingers into the white-striped red-orange fur on the top of his head, giving him long scruffs behind his ears.
A smile split wide on Rafe’s face.
If Fox was in his room, that meant the one thing he wanted more than anything was sure to follow.
Victoria slipped in through the open door of his room.
“You are awake. That ruins my fun. I thought it might be amusing to let Fox lick you out of slumber to see if you mistake him for me. Maybe even kiss him.” A teasing smile on her lips, she moved to the side of the bed, her hand trailing up along his leg that was half sticking out from the coverlet.
He grabbed her wrist, bringing it to his mouth to kiss it. “Even dead to the world, I know the difference between his tongue and yours.”
She sat down on the side of the bed and his hand curled around her hip.
Her fingers went up to brush the hair along his brow. “For a man accustomed to sleeping upright and always a breath away from awareness, you have done a lot of heavy sleeping these past weeks.”
“Apparently, I have years to catch up upon. Plus”—he lifted his left arm as far as the sling attaching his broken forearm to his torso would allow—“the bones have been healing with the utmost speed with all the rest. Though I have to admit, it has been odd, sleeping horizontally.”
A wicked gleam cut across the silver sparks in her blue eyes. “I rather like it. It’s makes you my captive, having to suffer whatever I bring you.”
His hand cupping her waist moved inward, his thumb going to the crux of her through her skirts. “I like what you bring me, captive or not.”
