Page 69 of Hideaway

Cade’s expression darkened beyond recognition, and Kara hastened to continue her story before he called an intermission to go kill someone.“Anyway, Jace knocked me out with something; I’m still not sure what. When I woke up, we were in a car. They hadn’t taken any precautions to blindfold me, so I started to assume the worst.Idon’t know how long we drove, but I eventually recognized the destination. Avery Reed had commissioned my kidnapping in the hopes of attaining the Chaucer text and as what he thought would be a personal slight toyoufor screwing him over. Jace, apparently, was all too happy to oblige him.”

“So you weretaken against your will and brutalizedbecause of some personal vendetta againstme?” Cade asked in utter shock, viciously raking his fingers through his dark hair as he began to feel his control slipping away.“Fuck,I should have made sure Reed was handled. I knew he was pissed about how everything played out. But I let myself get distracted. My guard was down, betrayal found its way into my own home, and I nearly lost something that I value most highly.” A glimmer of sorrow mingled with the fury in his green-gold eyes as Cade gazed into Kara’s tear filled eyes and implored her to read the utter remorse in his own.

“It’s not your fault, Cade,”she said in earnest, desperate to erase the self-loathing marring his features.

“Like fuck it isn’t,” Cade retorted angrily, disgusted with himself and his inability to keep her safe. Hell, he’d practically thrown her into a cage full of wolves and allowed them to do their fucking worst. Suddenly, he realized that Kara had completely glossed over the details of Jace’s involvement, never explaining just how far the bastard’s assault had gone. A sickening sense of dread leadened his stomach as he considered a horrifying possibility. “Did he—” Cade paused, searching for the words to a question he never,everwanted to ask. But he had to know. “Did Jace rape you?”

Kara looked away, unable to bear the painful mixture of fear and despair in his eyes. She wanted to lie. She wished with every atom in her body that shecouldlie. But Cade would know; he could probably already read the dark truth in her eyes. She already felt crushed beneath the suffocating weight of knowing exactly what Jace did to her. What hetookfrom her. And sharing that knowledge with Cade wouldn’t lighten the load, it would double it. But he deserved to know, and she deserved to not feel ashamed of voicing something that had been done without her consent. Slowly, Kara raised her head, peeking up at Cade from a veil of long, dark lashes. “Yes,” she answered finally, managing to mostly keep the tremble from her voice.

Cade’s composure shattered, his face contorting into an expression so dark it made devastation appear ecstatic by comparison.“Kara,”Cade uttered bleakly, putting all the anguish and guilt that the human voice was capable of conveying into a single word. Aching to touch her, to soothe away every detestable detail of the past day, Cade pulled her from the settee and into his arms. They sat in a wet puddle of limbs and despair as Kara allowed herself to fall apart and give in to the tears that had been building since Jace had walked into that goddamn room and left with a shard of her soul. Cade stroked her damp hair softly, quietly whispering apologies like chanted prayers for repentance.

“What if he broke me?”Kara asked softly as she burrowed into the warmth of his chest, soothed by the comforting melody of his heartbeat.

“He didn’t,” Cade answered with certainty, knowing the truth of his words in the very depths of his being. “Even Jace cannot accomplish the impossible.”

“How can you be so sure?” Kara questioned timidly as she looked up at Cade’s face.

“Because you’re the strongest person I know,” Cade assured her as he moved his hand from her hair and brushed his fingers over the bruises on her face. “Because even when I tried my hardest to break you, you ended up breaking me instead.”

“I didn’t break you,”Kara replied, her brows twisted in confusion at his words.

“Oh, you most certainly did,” Cade answered with an indescribable sadness in his tone.

For what might have been seconds or minutes or hours, they huddled in silence, wrapped in an embrace of sadness and surrender.“Would you like to go upstairs?” Cade asked softly, his words reverberating through the emptiness of the room.

Kara couldn’t respond. She lacked the energy, the strength, the fucking will to make her lips move and her vocal chords distribute sound. She merely nodded, the small action sorrowful and broken in itself.

Without waiting for her objections, Cade lifted her into his arms once more and headed for the stairs. “I’m sorry,” he breathed with his lips against her wet hair, kissing her head tenderly as he held her tightly against his chest. “I’m sorry.I’mso fucking sorry.” Cade continued to whisper apologies as he carried Kara to his room. By that point, his words were less meant for her and more an unconscious attempt to quell the nauseating barrage of guilt overwhelming his senses. It washisfault. Everything that fucking happened to her washisfault. And he needed some way to assuage the guilt before it poisoned him from the inside out.

When he reached his bathroom, Cade set Kara down gingerly on the edge of the tub before moving to draw a bath. Kara shivered with the contrast of heat against her frozen skin as the room started to fill with a warm haze of steam. Slowly, Cade turned toward her, his eyes clouded with a darkness that begged to be unleashed. With sheer force, he kept the darkness contained, but barely.

“Take off that damn shirt,” Cade ordered, his voice more harsh than he intended as he stared at the dreadful reminder of Jace clinging to her wet body. He hated her subtle flinch at the sharpness of his tone. He hated to hurt her even more than she already had been, but there was a fury coursing through his veins, begging to seep from his body and attach itself to the first available victim.He wouldn’t allow that victim to be her. Briefly,Cade closed his eyes, caging in the anger, subduing it like every other thing that threatened his control. When he opened his eyes, they were lighter, the storminess subsiding slightly. “Please,” he amended, brushing her damp hair from her cheek.

“Can you do it?” Kara asked softly, her eyes pleading. Her whole body felt numb; she wasn’t sure she could lift her hands to remove Jace’s shirt if she tried.

Wordlessly answering her plea, Cade’s fingers found the buttons on the shirt, carefully undoing them one by one. An unearthly growl escaped his throat when the shirt opened enough to reveal the bruises on Kara’s neck and chest. She hadn’t seen them, but she knew they were there. She could feel the soreness of them with every breath of her body.

“Whatthe fuckdid he do to you?” Cade asked in horror, his voice so black and abysmal Kara wasn’t sure if she’d ever hear light in his words again.

“I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” Kara brushed off, uncomfortable with the all-consuming violence of his gaze.

“I’m sure itlooksas bad as itfeels,” Cade retorted angrily as he undid the rest of the buttons hastily and threw the abhorrent piece of clothing on the floor. If possible, Cade’s expression darkened even further as he scrutinized her bare skin.

Slowly circling her, Cade took inventory of her injuries, painstakingly categorizing the bruises and bites and scratches etched into her skin—a map of Jace’s violence on her body. Cade brushed aside her hair and found the handprint left against her throat. He moved lower and touched the matching set of bite marks on each shoulder. His fingers grazed her bruised breasts, found the tender spots along her hips, stroked the markings on her inner thighs. Finally, his hand settled on the mark above her heart, covering the abomination of deep, bloodied crescents left unmistakably by a bite of brute force. Something aboutthathateful mark felt even more personal than the rest.

“Step in,” Cade ordered gently, taking her hand and carefully helping her into the bathtub.

Kara flinched as the hot water burned her chilled skin, but she delighted in the painful warmth as it spread throughout her body and thawed the iciness of her limbs. Still holding onto Cade’s hand, Kara pulled him toward her, begging him to join her. Needing to feel the hardened strength of his body against hers. Needing to re-memorize his delicious scent so she could banish the stench of Jace’s musk from the furthest recesses of her mind. Needing the reaffirmation of his feelings for her after everything that happened. Needing something that was real and true and good andhim. She neededhim. That was the first time she had allowed herself to admit how much Cade had imprinted himself upon her soul. She cared about Cade with an ardor that had seeped into the blood in her veins, melded with the very marrow of her bones, wrapped itself violently around her heart and squeezed until the rhythm of its beats were in tune with his own.

Unexpectedly, Cade pulled away, disrupting Kara’s sudden, awful realization that she might actually love the bastard.Fuck, she was almost certain she loved him. The idea was terrifying and exhilarating and everything in between.

“Please get in,” Kara pleaded, her voice unfamiliar with sheer desperation. “I need to feel you.”

Cade studied her for a moment, his expression conflicted, before shaking his head. “Not this time, love,” he answered sadly, his eyes guarded. He turned off the water before bringing over a washcloth and bottles of body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. Silently, Cade knelt in front of the tub, poured some soap smelling of citrus and clove on the cloth, and began to bathe her. His strokes were gentle as he brushed the cloth over bruises and tender skin with the utmost care. Kara squirmed uncomfortably as he lifted her arms to clean underneath them. He washed her breasts, but, unlike usual, his touch didn’t linger. In fact, he didn’t touch her at all, being very careful to use the cloth as a barrier between his hands and her bare skin. Kara longed to feel his touch so much that it physically ached.

“You know, you could do that easier if you were in the bath with me,” she suggested softly, the breathy hoarseness of her voice coming across seductively.

“I’m not getting in there, Kara,” Cade answered tensely, his voice rough. The sadness in her eyes was whittling away at his hardened resolve, but he steeled himself and his heart. If he got in that bath, if hetouchedher, he wouldn’t have the strength to do what he needed to do. He would hold onto her and never let her go.

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