Page 44 of Pack Rage
“Flor?” I whirled to face Finnick, who was sitting up now as well, one hand on his neck. “Your mother… healed me?” He let his fingers fall, revealing the long silver scar along the base of his neck. It was still red on the edges, but the bleeding had stopped.
For some reason, seeing that scar broke me. I started crying, ugly, wracking sobs, my whole body shaking. So I didn’t even see Finnick move, didn’t know what was happening when he shifted me onto his lap, cradling me. “Hush now, Wills. It’s going to be all right. I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re going to get through this.”
I couldn’t stop crying. Finnick’s scent of ginger was almost erased under the blood. There had been so much blood today. But his long fingers on my hair, soothing me, and his murmured words of comfort helped me to get control of myself.
“How, Finn?” I asked, staring up at him. “How are we going to get through this?”
“One breath at a time, I suppose. That’s how I’ve been surviving,” he answered. He drank me in with his eyes, and for an instant, his hand dropped to my neck, to the mate mark he’d put there, before he snatched it away. “Sorry.”
I stared up at him, aching to touch him, to grab his hand and place it back on my neck. But a deep insecurity filled me, and adeeper ache inside that came from my wolf had me holding still. “You said that before. Right after we bonded. You said it was a mistake, and that we shouldn’t have done it.”
He kept his eyes on mine, though his were filled with pain. “I’ve said worse. Hell, I’ve done worse. I tried to reject the bond entirely at Southern. Flor, I…”
I waited for him to finish, but he’d fallen silent. The space between us was filled with unspoken accusations, and explanations that might never be enough. Memories and fear and anguish. The moment at the lake, when I’d known he was touching another woman, flashed back like it had just happened.
“Tell me. I felt what you did. It hurt me, Finn. It hurt me worse than a beating. I need to understand why you did it.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, a single tear tumbling from his pale lashes, then opened them and spoke. “The first time my parents whored me out was when I was fifteen.”I gasped, but he went on, staring into the wall like he was watching a movie of his past. “She was the wife of a businessman Father wanted as an investor. I was scared. I’d never had sex before, and she was far older than me.”
His lips twisted. “She liked young boys. Father made the deal, but she told him in front of me I wasn’t a good lay. When she left, I swore on the moon I wouldn’t do it again. He locked me in a cell for a week with no food or water, sending Torran to give me some… encouragement to take back my vow. I did. I went back to my room, and a week later, another woman walked through my door.
“It got easier. I got good at the sex, and at hiding my disgust. I hated them all, and some of them seemed to like that. I was also learning all I could about finance, the markets, how to help the pack succeed. I told myself once I had more to offer, something more valuable, the whoring would stop. It didn’t, of course.” He sighed. “I was doing what they demanded; I was earning moneyfor the pack. But instead of getting praised for it, Father detested me more every year. When the day came that I would rather be beaten to death than touch one more woman, I confronted them both.”
His voice broke. “Father said it was fine. They’d just let Tana take over for me with those duties. They had a deal for Chinese silks, and the man was alone with her in the parlor. When I ran in to see if it was true, the bastard had her on his knee. Tana was twelve. She was terrified.”
“Oh, Finn.” My heart was shattering for him.
“I cut a deal. Tana would be safe until she was eighteen, as long as I did what they demanded. But that day, I started laying the groundwork to get her out. I had everything in place, but when I stayed in Northern to be near you, and didn’t return when Father called, they let me know they were giving her to one of the worst shifters at Eastern. I had to come back, even though I knew what was waiting for me here.”
I needed to know one thing, one detail. I didn’t want to, but I had to ask. I swallowed hard, forcing the words out. “You were forced to sleep with another woman, to keep Tana safe?”
“I didn’t sleep with her. Physically, Icouldn’t.” He twisted his head to the side, as if he couldn’t look at me. “I did… I was intimate with her. I did my job.”
He was shuddering with the effort of holding back his emotions, and I placed my hands on his face, turning him back to me. “You didn’t want to do it. You got Tana out. She’ssafe.Finn, look at me.” His expression was tortured as he obeyed. “Would you ever do it again? Will you?”
“Even if you never let me be in a room with you again for the rest of my life, I will never touch another woman. Even if you never let me touch you or kiss you again. I’m yours until I die, though I don’t deserve you. I’m tainted, Flor. That’s why I saidwhat I did. Why I pushed you away. I’m not worthy of you.” A tear rolled down his cheek, then fell to the floor.
He fell silent, but I kept my hands on his cheeks, considering. Nothing he’d said was untrue, except maybe that last part. “I’m the one who gets to decide if you’re worthy. And you’re not tainted.” He took a breath to argue, but I placed a finger over his lips. “You were coerced, Finn. I’ve met so many shifters, in almost every pack now, who were forced to do things they didn’t want. Some of them were female, some male. The pack didn’t protect them, just like yours didn’t, and they had to do a whole lot of things to survive.”
“My wolf knows,” he rasped. “I can’t let him surface. He tried to bite off our tongue. He tore off every inch of skin she touched on my arms, my shoulders. Every time I fell asleep, he rose and made sure I knew I had failed him. Failed you. But he couldn’t get us… clean.”
I shushed him, worried at the sudden scent that reminded me of the more feral wolves from the Tenebris pack for a moment. He really believed that he was to blame. “Now you listen to me, Cityboy. Nothing you did to survive, to save your sister’s life, could touch the core of who you are. Nothing they ever did to you—with words, or actions, or magic, even—could change your heart. You’re not their tool anymore. You’re not their torturer, or their spy, or their strategist. Finn, you’re my mate.” And it was time for him to start acting like one.
He trembled under my hands as I traced his plush lips. They were my favorite part of his face, and I’d stared at them far too long at Northern, wondering what it would feel like to have them on me.
“Kiss me, mate.”
He pulled back. “No. I can’t… I can’t touch you with my…” His wolf rose, gold flecks surfacing in deeper green irises. “No,” he growled. “Filthy. Dirty.”
I let my own wolf rise, as much as she could, and growled back. She glared at his neck, for some reason. “Mate.Claim.”
His wolf seemed confused for a moment, though not as confused as I was, but a moment was all it took. My teeth lengthened, and before I knew what was happening, I had my head buried in his neck and his flesh in my mouth. His blood was wild ginger and salt, spicy and clean, as I bit down.
Mate,my wolf snarled as she marked him again, this time where the whole world would see. Finnick’s arms came up to hold me close as I licked the fresh wound, tasting his blood. Then he pressed his lips to my neck, to his own mark, murmuring something that I was almost certain was a prayer.
“I don’t deserve you, Florida Wills,” he said after a long moment.
“I think you do,” I replied, my hands on his face again as I pushed back to examine those sexy lips again. “And I deserve a second kiss.”
