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A sober frown pulled at the corners of her mouth, and she grimly shook her head, a shiver running through her. “No, I don’t want to sleep. My dreams… weren’t very good,” she finished and grimaced. “Not that they’re ever good, but now they’ve entered a new dimension of hell with the sound of screams and the sight of flesh charring and peeling from bodies. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get that sight out of my head now.”
Raskyuil murmured soothingly as he resumed stroking her belly. “It will fade.”
She gave him a wry smile. “You might regret mating yourself to a complete wimp.”
He gave her a disbelieving look and scoffed. “Do not think that others were not equally affected. I suspect half the camp still is. I do not fault you for being haunted by what you saw, nor would anyone else.”
His mate gave him a long look, assessing his words, and finally nodded, the tension in her muscles easing. “It was horrible. In movies it always seemed a lot quicker—and cleaner somehow. But the screams and the sight of blood bubbling beneath peeling and bursting skin…” her voice trailed off, and she shuddered.
“Don’t think of it,” he rasped, drawing her close against him. “I won’t let anything harm you or your younglings. If I could fend off your dreams by the weight of my ax, I would protect you from them as well.”
The corners of her lips quirked in a weak smile, and she snuggled into him, her breath fanning his chest. “I hate being afraid all the time. I think you’re the only thing in the whole world that makes me feel safe. Like I can be strong.”
“You are stronger than you believe yourself to be,” he rumbled, unable to believe that she couldn’t see her own strength himself. That she considered herself weak was laughable. “To do what you’ve done despite being afraid takes more strength than most within this camp possess.”
Craning her head back, she peered up at him and bit her lip. “Do you think anyone is going to think less of me because we left earlier?”
He shook his head. “Few would have stayed, mostly the unmated males. No one would have expected us to stay. They did what was proper to send the vampires on without us.”
Tucking her head once more against his chest, she breathed a sigh of relief and settled comfortably into his touch as he continued to stroke her soft skin. It was a small gesture, just the flat of his hand gently stroking her, and yet they both seemed to take comfort from it. More than that, he enjoyed it.
He enjoyed the feeling of his fingers skimming over her abdomen, all the way up to the point where he encountered a rough, jagged surface. What was that? He traced one, following it as it swept up her side. His brows lowering in puzzlement, Raskyuil sat up and pulled the blanket back, fully exposing his mate’s naked body to his gaze.
She startled at the touch of the cooler air, and he felt a miniscule pinch of guilt at the way her eyes flew open with surprise as she instinctively grappled for the bedding that he had pulled out of her reach. Flattening his hand against her belly, he pushed her back against the bed, his gaze narrowing on the ragged scars marring her flesh.
“Raskyuil! What are you doing? It’s freezing,” she protested, wiggling her hips as if she thought it could dislodge him.
He looked up and met her eyes. “I will warm you soon enough, but there is something I wished to see first.”
She scoffed. “What could possibly want to see that you haven’t already?”
He frowned, turning her once more toward him, his eyes following the path of four jagged scars. He’d seen quite a bit of her, true, but he was distracted enough with their first mating that he somehow hadn’t seen these. Four long, brutal scars slashed diagonally down her left side, the scar tissue pale and rough. But also old.
He traced over them with his fingertips, his claws lightly brushing them, anger and heartache clawing through him. Whatever had done it, she’d worn those scars for a long time, though he suspected that they had healed long before her internal wounds had even begun to knit together.
Those wounds were only beginning to start to mend and were raw and angry. They still bled, which was evident whenever she flinched or recoiled in terror—but they were healing, slowly but surely. Her poignant fear made a lot more sense to him. She must have been young when she’d received them, suffering and in pain in a fallen world.
Had she suffered through infection? Had she been forced to sew them together or endure another without a draught to ease her pain? Young and afraid, she’d suffered, and it made something within him clench angrily as he brushed his fingers over one of the ragged marks, his anger stirring as her skin flinched and quivered anxiously beneath his touch.
“What did this?” he rasped.
“I-it’s nothing,” she stammered, her eyes widening as she immediately attempted to brush his hand away to cover up evidence of the scars with the edge of the blanket. “I’m sorry. I know that they are ugly. You weren’t supposed to see them.”
He frowned at her reply, perplexed at her response. She had wished to hide them from him? Now that he noted it, however, he recalled that she’d kept the blanket pressed very close to her side or had angled her body in ways that made the scars less visible in his distracted state.
The realization that she didn’t want him to see them was painful. He wanted her to look up to him as her protector and defender, and to trust him with her pain and happiness. Not hide it. Even if he was unable to collect vengeance against the one who had harmed her, he still wanted to share the burden of what had happened. For her to hide it both hurt and insulted him as her mate. He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t see it and allow her to hide herself from him as if she felt her scars were something shameful reflected upon her. That she felt that way about them was clear enough.
“Ugly? Impossible,” he scoffed. “They are beautiful. Their presence means that you faced a foe and had the strength to survive them to be here with me. That you escaped what might have easily killed you is something I would worship and celebrate.”
MaryAnne gave him an uncertain look and craned her neck to look down at them, her lips thinned into a tight line. Her brow knotted, and she ran a finger along one thoughtfully. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes. But I would still know who and what hurt you, little mate?” he attempted again.
She looked up at him, helpless confusion in her eyes. “Why? It happened a long time ago.”
He shrugged as he wrestled with his anger at seeing that look in her eyes. He had spent considerable time hunting less worthy rivals. He even suspected that his mate would enjoy attending the hunt with him so that she could watch the suffering he brought to them on her behalf.
“It matters not. If they are still living within this world, I would hunt them down and end their lives at your feet for giving you such terrible pain. It would be a pleasure and honor to revisit your pain upon them and punish them for giving you a reason to fear so deeply.” He met her startled gaze and gave her a sharp grin. “I would gladly draw death down upon any who hurt you.”
