Page 30 of Sanctuary

There’s a kind of tension to Aidan’s silence that bothers me. A lot.

“It could have been worse,” I continue. “He was youngish, and he didn’t get off on pain. I got clothes and better food and a more comfortable place to sleep.” I let out a breath and add in a softer voice, “I would have rather done manual labor with Del and my mom.”

“I’m sure.” He pauses. “Had you had sex before?”

“No.”

“How long were you there?”

“Maybe six months? My mom went into labor early, and both her and the baby died.” I can say this without breaking down. I haven’t cried over the loss in a long time. “Then the compound was attacked by some sort of gang. In the chaos, I found Del and some of us got away. We traveled for a while, and then the group settled in a town that still had some salvageable supplies and provisions. We lived there for a couple of years.”

“How many of you were there?”

“There were about thirty to start with, but more people found us and settled there too, so there ended up being fifty or sixty. The, uh, guy in charge was pretty bossy. He liked to order people around. We all had jobs to do.”

“And your job?”

“My job was to fuck him. He was worse than the first guy. He didn’t physically harm me, but he liked to be dominant.”

“What did that look like?”

Aidan doesn’t sound curious or perversely interested in hearing dirty details. He sounds chilly. Stern. Almost angry.

He’s not angry at me. I understand that much. And somehow his cold disapproval of the men who used me is a strange comfort. An acknowledgement that it was wrong.

“He wouldn’t just get it over with like the militia guy. That guy mostly just wanted to get his rocks off and roll over to sleep. This one wanted me to get aroused. To beg. He’d demand blow jobs at any time of the day, even in front of other people. He liked to spank me. He’d get off whenever it turned me on. He strung me along. Sometimes I tried not to come because I knew he wanted it, but I couldn’t always help it.”

I can’t believe I just told Aidan that. I’ve never told anyone. Not even Del. The mortifying knowledge of how hard I’d sometimes come for that man—unwillingly—makes my face burn even now. He put the effort into learning my body so he could use it against me.

“It wasn’t rape,” I blurt out. “I offered myself to him. I just didn’t… want it. But it was still my choice.”

“A choice made when the other option is to die isn’t a real choice.” His voice now is even colder than the snow outside.

“No. It’s not. But some things are better than others. I managed to find men who would take care of me and my sister. If I had to fuck them in order for this to happen, it was still better than dying. Or being taken by force.”

“Yeah. I understand that. You did the best you could. A lot better than most.” Aidan clears his throat. Shifts slightly. “I thought Del told me you and her came from the coast.”

“We did. The guy I was fucking was killed, and the one who took over there was a lot worse. He liked to hurt people. I knew immediately we couldn’t stay, so I got Del and we ran. We came across another group of survivors on the road. They were heading for the coast, thinking it might be safer, so we went with them. We ended up at the ocean. The hurricanes had died down by then, but it was still really flooded. We found some boats so we could fish and discovered an old beach hotel that was still standing, rising out of the water. We lived there for a couple of years.”

“Did you have to fuck someone then too?”

“Yes. Maybe they would have let us stay without it, but we didn’t have a lot to offer, and I wasn’t going to take the chance. So I fucked the leader there too. He wasn’t nearly so bad. He was in his fifties and didn’t have a lot of energy. It was mostly some brief thrusting at night—I’d talk sweet to him and tell him what a big man he was—and otherwise he didn’t bother me.”

“And that’s when Cole got you both out of there?”

“Yes. Our group was attacked, and Cole got us out and took us to Monument. We had a couple of good years there before…” I drift off, suddenly reluctant to give Aidan even more to be angry about.

But he already knows this part. “That’s when you were kidnapped.”

“Yes.”

“How much did they… hurt you?”

“Not as much as you’re probably thinking. That was just last year, and I’d learned by then how to handle men. I quickly identified the alpha and offered myself to him. Encouraged him to be possessive so he wouldn’t want to share me.”

He’s quiet for a moment before he murmurs, “Smart.”

Ridiculously, it makes me feel better. “So at least it was just the one guy. He was rough and… and gross. But he was also not really bright, so I was able to manipulate him. And it was less than two weeks before Cole and Del were able to get me out of there.”

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