Page 66 of Merciless
He rubbed my lower back, fingers moving in an idle, circular pattern, staring intently at Reaper.
I gave a light scratch to the beard on his jaw to get his attention. "Anything you want to talk about?"
Shadow's jaw clenched, a harsh huff of breath leaving his nostrils. "I wasn't able to protect him."
"Now you better not apologize," I warned. "He'd never want you to become a martyr for him, pain or no pain."
"I know. He told me as much." Shadow's rubbing at my back stopped. "It wasn't even so much the torture I wanted to protect him from but the aftermath." His hold tightened around me. “Dealing with what comesaftertorture, it can be so much worse.”
"Oh, Shadow..." My arms draped around his neck, I was somehow still amazed at the massive heart and empathy of this man.
"He's going to deal with things like I did," Shadow continued. "Maybe not sleepwalking, but he'll have nightmares. There will be random sounds or words that will take his mind back there. I just wish I could have prevented that for him."
"He will heal." He had to wake up first, I refused to consider the possibility that that wouldn't happen. But once he did, we would rally around him. "We can take him to see Dr. Ellis if he needs it."
"You know how stubborn he is," Shadow muttered. "He'll have to swallow his pride and accept help."
"He will," I repeated. "He's already seen the results of it in you."
"I hope you're right. It was so—" Shadow stopped abruptly, squeezing around me tighter with a sharp breath. "It was awful, lover. What I went through in a year in my old life, they did to him in a week."
"I'm sorry you had to see that." I kissed his cheek just above his beard and felt the tension melt out of him.
"It was how the Sha tried to break me," he admitted. "To control my mind. He could tell I was mentally damaged—"
"You're not," I interrupted.
Shadow returned to looking at me. "He tried to use you," he admitted, like it was a shameful secret.
"What do you mean?" I rested a palm on his chest to calm him further, knowing that was where he felt most of his anxiety.
"He...conjured up an image of you and tried to make me believe you were there with me. Your face, your voice. I could even touch it and itfeltlike you."
"But you knew it wasn't."
"Yeah, I figured it out pretty quickly." His hand rested over mine on his chest, and our smiles connected in a long overdue kiss.
The familiar elation and joy he sparked so readily in me burst to life like a bonfire. My guys were home and alive, and this kiss was the thing that cemented it all into reality.
"I love you so much," I breathed. "I'm so glad you're okay. So glad you're back."
"I told you I'd never leave," he said before kissing me again.
I was still exhausted and sleep-deprived but that mouth locking over mine, those hands smoothing up my back reinvigorated me in a way sleep and food never could. I couldn't wait to feel all my men together, their unique touches and kisses piling on me until I was breathing nothing but them.
"Something else happened," Shadow murmured when we paused for a breath.
"I'm listening," I said, moving a kiss to his forehead.
He turned his head in a way that made my lips brush against the scar cutting through his eye. "I think...I confronted the ghost of my mother."
"Really?" I leaned back to look at his face.
"It felt like I was under Doc's hypnosis," he explained. "I was aware of myself but not fully lucid. But she..." Shadow met my eyes and shook his head slowly. "She wasn't a memory. And while it's possible, I don't think it was the Sha fucking with me."
"What did you say to her?"
"Told her to fuck all the way off, pretty much." A smile pulled at his lips. "I told her she didn't control me anymore. That despite all the odds, I found someone who loves me." His eyes flicked downward to our connected hands. "Who forgives me."
