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"What did you drink?" I demand.
"Ic-Iced tea. Norman had… He'd ordered it already."
Her back arches at my touch, and I can see how hard her nipples are. They're poking through her shirt.
This is not good.
"What did your drink taste like?"
She doesn't respond, her hands reaching for me. I grab her wrists, stopping her. One of us has to be in control of ourselves, and that person is going to have to be me.
"Your drink, Cynthia," I say sharply. "What did it taste like?"
"Too sweet," she breathes, her eyes half-masted.
It's hard to get my brain to function when she smells like arousal and looks at me as if she wants me to devour her whole. However, her words permeate through the thick fog in my head.
Shit.
That bastard gave her aphrodisiac!
CHAPTER 12
Adam
Helping Cynthia into my apartment is the furthest thing from easy.
Her arousal is intoxicating, and it's taking every ounce of my self-control to not give in. My wolf is both angry and desperate for a taste, and I rein it back, trying to steady myself. My head is already reeling from all this information she's thrown at me, from the memories her words have jogged, and I have a hard time trying to get my own feet on the ground.
Aphrodisiac has a way of loosening the tongue as well. As I set her down on the sofa and go to fetch a glass of cold water for her, my thoughts are flying all over the place. Would she have told me any of this if she hadn't been drugged?
My hands tighten on the glass, that childhood memory playing over and over again in my head. I can't get the screams out of my head. Wolf shifters cherish their offspring. So for my father to harm a child from our pack deliberately is something unfathomable. And then, on top of everything, he brought that child into our home under the guise of sponsoring her.
The glass shatters in my hand, the shards piercing my skin.
What could any child do that warranted such a cruel and vicious punishment?
I pluck out the shards one by one, running my hand under the tap water to clean the wound.
My father was a greedy man, but I never remembered him to be a sadist.
How long?
Since the day I got there.
She was abused by my father and my brother, financially controlled, and cut off from the rest of the pack. If she had attended any pack events or any bonding events, I would have seen her and been able to distinguish her scent when I met her at that bar. Or I would have been able to figure out we were fated mates and started off with courtship rather than…
This explains her naivety from our first meeting. It also explains why she didn't seem to realize we were fated mates. Things that were taught to us as children, she was deprived of that knowledge. That must have made it easier for my father to control her. Keeping her isolated from the pack would have been an ideal way to keep her dependent on him. Lydia had mentioned to me that she could sense how weak the bond was between Cynthia and her wolf. At this age, it wasn't normal. Our human side completely blends with our animal once we reach puberty, especially more so after our first shift. For her to have such a weak bond with her own wolf either means that she's been suppressing it her whole life or she has trouble shifting. I would bet on the former. Considering everything else Father has done to her, preventing her from shifting wouldn't be so hard. And such emotional trauma from a young age would cause even more difficulties for her to connect with her animal.
I grab another glass and fill it with water before heading over to where Cynthia is sitting. I can see her struggling to control herself, her claws digging into her thighs through her pants.
"Drink this." I give her the water.
She grabs it, but her hands are shaking as she looks at me, her gaze desperate as she silently asks for something else. I look back at her, feeling frustrated. It would be the easiest thing in the world to give in. She's mine. But everything in Cynthia's life has been decided for her, even down to the autonomy of her own body. Suddenly, her reaction when my father brought her to my office dressed in tiny clothes makes more sense. And it enrages me.
All these years my father has abused and tormented her. Why?
There has to be a reason behind it.
