Page 46 of Enchanted with the Orc
He scoffed, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “You were barely old enough to be considered an adult,” he told me. Those big, gentle fingers released my chin as he cupped my cheek instead. I leaned into the movement, closing my eyes against the protective rage in his own.
“I still should have known better. I should have seen what he was doing. How he was separating me from my friends. From the only family I’d ever had,” I gasped the words past my tightening throat, praying that I wouldn’t begin sobbing yet. This was only the beginning. I hadn’t even told him the hard truths yet.
Instead of arguing, he stroked his thumbs over my cheek and the top of my hand at the same time. I kept my eyes closed, unable to meet his soft gaze as I continued.
“He wooed me the usual ways. Dates, acting like he loved me. Things like that.” I released a long breath before I continued. “And then the abuse started.” It was still so hard to talk to him about it, even after I’d admitted it to him before. The never-ending pool of shame was still there—and I doubted it would ever go away. “And then I found out I was pregnant with Gabbi,” I whispered.
The speed of the memories was nauseating, but one stood out to me. The moment when I realized that Gabbi was more than just something keeping us together.
I felt a tear slip down my cheek at the memory. For the longest time, I’d regretted getting pregnant. For months, a small trickle of resentment had forced its way to the front of my mind while my baby had grown inside me.
But one night had made me see the truth. Had made me realize how much I wanted her. How much I loved her already.
“One night,” I said, barely hearing my own voice. “He’d come home from work and for some reason, he thought I’d had someone over.”
I shook my head, still unable to fathom why he’d had his breakdownthat night. Why he’d decided that it was time for the real monster to come out. The memory played like a movie in my head as I relayed it.
“He was always the jealous type, but that night was different. It was as if… he’d gone over the edge.” The look in his eyes as he’d faced me, spewing poisonous words at me was unforgettable. I’d never seen him look like that, and the fear that had overtaken me had chilled me to my bones.
“I was two weeks away from my due date,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “And somehow he got it into his head that I’d had the energy to sneak around with someone behind his back.”
You’re nothing but a whore. Is that baby even mine?
“Then he started hitting me,” I whispered, pressing my thumbnail into the flesh of my thigh so I could center myself with the pain. “It’s not like he’d ever stopped. My pregnancy wasn’t anything special to him. I’m still shocked I didn’t lose her.” I pressed my hand to my lower stomach, remembering how many times I’d done that, not quite sure whether I wanted her to still be there or not.
A hot flush of shame overtook me as I wondered what I would have done without my sweet girl. The most precious thing in the world to me. I took a steadying breath, not ready to admit that to anyone.
“When he aimed for my stomach, I ran from him. But we were upstairs and he was so fast,” I whispered. “When I got to the stairs, he shoved me. I lost my balance and I was about to fall when he grabbed me by the hair.”
The painful ache in my scalp had been nothing compared to the terror that had flooded me. The knowledge that I would prefer to die than to lose my baby. In that moment, I knew I loved her. I loved the little heartbeat that I heard on the ultrasounds. I adored every little move she made inside of me. And it would have all ended if he’d let my hair go.
“That’s what stopped me from falling. His hold on my hair.” My voicecracked as I relayed the story. “And he held me there,” I gasped, tears flowing more freely. “Letting me know that the power to kill Gabbi and I was in his hands.”
I was in Enka’s arms in a moment. He pressed me to his chest, snuggling me close.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured into my hair, and I felt the wetness against my scalp that told me that he was crying with me.
I didn’t respond to him, just holding him close, comforting myself while I comforted him. I hadn’t been held like this—allowedmyself to be safe and vulnerable in someone’s arms—since well before I’d met David.
“That’s when I started my plan,” I told him, tucking my face against his throat, surrounding myself with his heat and scent. Filling myself up with safety in the face of a memory that made me feel everything else. “He pulled me up by my hair and took me to the bedroom. He locked me in and I didn’t know how to escape but I knew I had to. I had to get away or he’d kill me and my baby. I had to go home, but he knew where I would go, and I wasn’t powerful enough to do the protection spell on my own.”
“A protection spell?” he asked, stroking my hair with gentle fingers.
I nodded, sniffling against his skin. I should be mortified that I was getting my tears and snot all over this male, but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel that way. Not with Enka.
“It’s a specific one. One that makes us untraceable,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his neck, twining my fingers into his thick, dark hair. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I just needed to be closer to him. “So that he’d never be able to find us.”
“Were you able to do that?” he asked, and I gave a slow nod.
“But not then. It was…after Gabbi was born. Before that, it was hard to sneak out of the house. And he had so many cameras everywhere. It was like a prison,” I said, moving even closer until I found myself on his lap.
He was stiff for a long moment, before he stroked a hand down myback and he relaxed under me. I released a relieved breath, melting against him. I continued talking, pretending that this was completely normal forfriends. That I wasn’t clinging to him like a long lost lover.
Friends hug,I lied to myself.
“But then it got worse,” I explained and he released a shuddering breath.
“Worse?” he breathed, and he shuddered under me. “Dear Gods, he was a complete monster already.”
