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“Hush, darling. Don’t be scared.” Still holding her in the cradle position as he sat, Jasper cupped her cheek in his hand and turned her face to his. “Look at me, please.”
The firm request wasn’t enough to compel her to obey. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head. She wanted off his lap, out of this chair, and to get back to Saul before the beast inside this man devoured her.
“Look. At. Me.” His voice resonated with command this time, and something inside her sat straight up and paid attention. “That’s a good girl. He can make a sub out of you yet, if that’s what you want.”
“Jasper,” Saul hissed.
As Caera’s eyes opened and focused on ice-blue ones, she saw Jasper smile. “The girl knows more than you think. She recognizes dominance when she sees it, she just hasn’t quite put the pieces together yet.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No, it’s not,” Jasper agreed with a heavy sigh. He traced the edge of her hairline, the shape of her jaw and eye sockets. Fingertips ran down her nose, over her lips, in a way that should have been sexual, but wasn’t. “Hello, little sister.”
She gasped and jerked back.
“Do you think it’s possible, J?” Thane demanded.
Jasper nodded slowly, but his eyes never left hers. “I see him in you. The shape of your eyes, your nose, your jaw. Dominic leaves his stamp on his offspring. More than that…” He leaned forward and touched his lips to Caera’s forehead. “Run back to your Dom, darling. He knows how to comfort you better than I can.”
Her body was frozen. All she could do was blink at him stupidly, studying his face and wondering how the hell he came to the conclusion that they were siblings. She couldn’t see herself in him, but then, her vision was blurring at the edges.
“What they did to us in that house left a stain,” he murmured. “I think only those of us who survive it can see it in others, and there aren’t many who walked out of that place alive. One day, you’ll grasp just how lucky you are, Caera. Now, back to Saul,” he ordered again.
No. Shifting carefully on his thighs, Caera lifted her hand to his cheek, his stubble prickling her fingertips. Watching his eyes in case he didn’t approve of her touching what she shouldn’t, she performed the same tactile assessment he’d given her, only she didn’t know what she was looking for.
Her free hand mirrored the path her fingers took over Jasper’s facial structure on her own face, trying to see if she could feel similarities. He was sculpted, where she was gaunt. Everything about him was masculine, a little rugged and imperfect.
Her hair was darker than his by more than a few shades. Golden to his white. Her eyes were green, whereas his were that arctic blue that threatened to freeze anyone in their tracks if they pissed him off.
But when she looked into them, past the shape and the color she didn’t recognize, she saw him. The stain he’d mentioned wasn’t a stain at all, but a cloud. A dark, hazy cloud of pain and anguish that couldn’t be released. Trapped for eternity behind the lens of the eye, swirling and hissing like a rabid beast where no one could see it.
That was familiar.
The few times she’d actually been able to meet her gaze in a mirror, Caera had seen that poison brewing, and had never been able to understand how it got there. She brought her face closer to this perfect stranger’s until their noses brushed, peering harder at the enigma they shared.
“Now you know,” Jasper murmured. “Now you understand.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t. Who am I?”
Jasper sighed and rested his forehead against hers. “The product of a monster, darling. Bred and trained by bad people to do bad things. My advice to you is that if you can’t remember what they did, don’t go looking for it. Keep them out of your head for as long as you can.”
“It’s too late. They’re already there.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem with them.”
She eased back slowly. “Are you really my brother?”
“This would be awkward if I wasn’t, wouldn’t it? There’s too much resemblance to Dominic to deny it, but if you want a DNA test to confirm it, I’m happy to do that. We’re not full siblings—as far as I know, I’m the only offspring Dominic and Rita made together, but he impregnated a lot of women.”
Suddenly his dominance didn’t scare her as much. Some incredibly needy part of her that was desperate for family absorbed the idea of him like a sponge drinking water. Not in a sexual context, not like her bond with Saul, but whatever it was, it made her view him in a different light.
“Saul, why don’t you come get your sub so I can tend to mine, and I’ll divulge some of our disastrous history.” Jasper tapped her on the nose. “My kitten gets jealous and, sister or not, she might be upset that I have another woman on my knee.”
“At least she’s not laid over it,” Caera muttered, her brain-to-mouth filter apparently on the fritz.
Jasper laughed richly and ran his tongue around his teeth. “Well, it seems Saul might not be moving as slowly as I first thought. Do I need to do the brotherly thing and kick your ass, boy?” he asked as the man under discussion hooked one arm under Caera’s knees, the other supporting her back.
Saul snorted. “Less of the boy, Jasper. There’s four years between us.”
