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“She was mad. Making her babysit me. I had to go to the bathroom, and then she just left,” Devin stammered out against the hard planks of the floor, each word bringing her lower. “I only called my friend so she wouldn’t do something stupid, but… Please, please, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Enough,” Rey muttered, rising to take his chair. Fingertips rubbing tight circles at his temples, he stared sightless at the scattered paperwork on his desk. “Just leave her in here. I’ll deal with Chrissy later.”
“Maybe that’s not such a good idea.” Beau shoved off the desk, ambling towards the liquor cabinet to pour himself a whiskey.
“You shot her up this morning, right? It’ll be fine for a few hours. Not like you plan on pulling a full shift anyhow.” Rey scoffed, a derisive sound as he straightened his spine and picked up a pen.
“You don’t need me. The guys can organize themselves.”
“Right, keep telling yourself that each time you cash your paycheck.”
“Wasn’t for me, this shithole would still be a crackpipe dream, friend.”
Rey stiffened, smile lazy as he turned it up to Beau. Nothing about his posture signaled friendship as he leaned forward, fingers steepled before his chin. “True enough. I seem to remember covering up for a pretty boy, though.”
Devin made herself smaller as the tension swept through the room. An ear-splitting explosion of aggression and pride crushed her against the floorboards as the two males stood off against one another. She couldn’t breathe, the pain in her ribs combining with the suffocating anxiety of what was to come next.
It deflated in the next heartbeat, Beau’s hearty laugh expelling it from the dusty corners of the office. He raised his glass, tipping it towards Rey in a salute before he downed the golden liquid. “Keep an eye on her while I get the guys in order. If she gives you shit, give me a yell.”
“Yeah, sure.”
As quiet crept through the office in sinuous strands, Rey tipped his head from side to side, the crack and pop of his neck loud as gunshots. He looked down at Devin, something close to sympathy shimmering in the back of his umber eyes. Lifting his chin at the small refrigerator beneath the liquor cabinet, he said, “Get an ice pack for your face.”
Devin didn’t bother standing. Crawling to the dorm fridge, she tugged open the small freezer and pulled a green gel pack out. Closing the metal door, she curled up in the corner, hoping to be forgotten. She’d never had such luck, Rey’s hand waving her back behind the desk. Everything hurt so much. She felt sick, weary to the bone, exhausted. All she wanted to do was sleep for a thousand years, maybe more.
“Wrap it in this.” His soft words were followed by an honest-to-Gods handkerchief. He didn’t give her the opportunity to do it herself, taking the ice pack and folding it up in the stiff cotton. Hands careful, he eased her head to the right and placed the covered pack on what must be the worst of the bruises. It sure hurt the most.
Mumbling a thank you, she held the pack to her cheek, staring a thousand miles past the dim corner of the room. As Rey set back to work, ignoring her for a change, Devin tried to piece together the chaotic puzzle of her life.
She really was an idiot if she thought she could fix any of this. There was no getting out of it until they let her, and that may never happen. The best she could hope for was death or tolerable. Devin didn’t want to die. Not yet. They might grow bored soon enough, but that didn’t mean they would let her go, either.
Then there was what Rey had been saying last night while on the phone with the woman De Vries. Tainted suppressants were still being circulated, just not in the mass amounts when Devin went into heat. That meant it could be several more months before she achieved anything nearing the levels she needed to drown her dynamic and stop the cycle of her estrus. The way Beau spoke, he intended to keep her like some kind of slave to his needs, giving and withholding hormones at will to satisfy his sadistic desires. She might never be normal again as he played at being one of the Gods.
There was also the forgotten birth control. She didn’t even remember where she’d had it last. One dose taken there at the clinic and then lost. A child couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t survive that. Rey would be more understanding, would see to it. He had before. Perhaps later, when everyone wasn’t so angry with her, when she wouldn’t be interrupting him, she could broach the subject. Until then, she’d have to pray and hope it was enough.
Devin startled when Rey’s hand engulfed her side, dragging her across the floor to his side. Pressed against his leg, head drawn down into his lap, he tangled his fingers in her hair and scrubbed at her scalp at the base of her skull. His tugging at the strands was just this side of pain. It comforted, soothing away the tension bunching her back as he moved the ice pack to the other side of her face.
Inch by inch, she relaxed into him and the momentary solace he offered. Devin had a feeling she would need this glimmer of softness and light to cling to in the middle of a darkest moment later on. Gods knew Beau would never calm a woman. It wouldn’t ease the pulses of agony searing through her or quiet the tortured screams echoing through her head, but it was something.
Devin must have dozed off at some point, lost in the redolent warmth of the male and the steady sweep of his fingers over her hair. A stifled gasp brought her awake, eyes gummy with dried tears and misery, her face on fire and frozen in turns.
“Swallow,” Rey whispered against her ear.
Pills slid over her lips, sticking to the roof of her mouth, the tacky stretch of her tongue. A splash of water tried to soothe parched tissue, succeeding in only forcing the pressed powder down her throat. They scraped at the rawness there, grinding their way down to plunk into a stomach too long left empty. Devin managed a whine, the world spinning as she fell back against the solidness of Rey’s leg, tethering her to the few things that remained real to her.
“Gods, Beau, what did you do to her?”
Devin snapped to attention, the clammy sweat on her palms making her hands skid over the smooth wood as she scuttled away from Rey’s leg. Shoulders rounding, head low, she offered the beast the most submissive posture she could manage as every breath wheezed through swollen lips.
Except, he never came. Rey’s steady breaths mingled with her gasping, no other grinding footsteps but his as he stood and came to crouch over her. Smoothing back the hopeless knots of her curls, he sighed and gathered Devin to his chest. Rey crooned against her temple when she couldn’t stop the pained sounds as he carried her back to his chair and settled Devin across his lap. Hard plastic pushed at her lips, lukewarm liquid trickling down her chin before Devin tried to swallow again. She tasted salt and fat, but her brain wouldn’t work. It refused to make sense as Rey pushed the cup rim against her lips and forced more down her throat.
“Sick,” Devin mumbled. Hand trembling in the air, not daring to push the offending thing away as her stomach twisted and threatened to revolt.
“You’re not sick. We just have to get you eating.”
“Can’t.”
“You’re just trying to go into heat, sweetheart. Your system’s trying to shut it all down. We can’t have that. You need to eat, get some fluids, okay?”
