Page 8 of Prodigy & Tybalt
“I don’t like seeing it, you know,” he said, his voice sharper around the edges. Good. I didn’t know what the fuck to do with his softness. “You, going through the same pain I did. I’d hate seeing that happen toanyone.That’s why I purred, if you must know.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You’re wary, and with good reason after what that sick excuse for an alpha did.”
I lifted my glare from a spot on his chest, locking eyes with the alpha. The bastard had pretty eyes. Long lashed, warm, and flecked with gold. “What was his name? The buyer.”
Tybalt sighed, perching on the arm of the sofa I woke up on, looking like a delinquent who’d broken into the cosy room to rob its antiques. “Lance Brown. Some prick who works in insurance and comes from a wealthy family, so he thinks he can get away with anything.”
“He can,” I muttered. “Money can buy just about anything these days.” Maybe it always had been able to.
Tybalt nodded, his stare narrowed on a spot behind me. “Why do you think the Alpha Knights exist?”
“Because you had a passion for music and leather, and needed a way to express that.”
The look he shot my way was equal parts exasperation and amusement. “We’re not a fucking boy band. We’re a motorcycle club.”
“Same thing.”
Those two expressions merged into a smirk that looked frustratingly good on his face. I was trying to hate him, and he was making it difficult by giving me space, and being hot, and purring. I wanted it again, craved the way it would work through my body and make everything alright for a few minutes.
“Six weeks ago, three of the women who live in our sanctuary got kidnapped while they were out shopping,” Tybalt said without prompting, his attention falling on me and holding there.
“By the same guy?Lance Brown.”I said his name like a disease, a poison.
Tybalt shook his head, his long dark hair tangled, the sad, stretched remnant of a hair tie just about clinging to the ends. “No, those monsters were—worse,” he said with difficulty.
“Oh, right, I’ll just piss off with my sub-par sexual assault, shall I?” I snarled, turning for the door.
“Omega,” Tybalt said in a low, compelling voice. No growl required. No fucking purr, either. “I’m not undermining your ordeal. I’m saying they were taken by a gang of alphas and betas with absolutely no regard for women, locked in a grimy basement full of cum-stained mattresses, and repeatedly raped by all the men of the gang. It’s—fuck.”
The tight, strained quality of his voice made me face him again, my arms crossed over my chest.
He ran a hand down his face. “I’ve seen a lot of vile, sickening shit since I joined the Knights, but that’s the sort of thing that leaves you with nightmares. I can never erase it from my memory.”
I hugged myself tighter, pressing on my bruises. A different kind of violence than what those women experienced. I let out a rough sigh and nodded to say I understood. I’d been bought and sold, kept captive, beaten daily, touched until my skin scalded and I wanted to claw it off my bones, kissed until I wanted to burn the impression from my lips, but—not like that.
I sighed. It didn’t make what happened in that room any easier to deal with, didn’t heal any of my injuries or fix the mess in my head, but I only had one abuser, and my prison had been pristine and civilised.
“So I got the three star treatment, and theirs didn’t even have a star,” I mused, dark humour the only thing keeping me sane. That, and the thought of going home. And the memory of that purr.
“Jesus,” Tybalt groaned, pulling at his hair. “Not a single fucking one of you should have been throughanyof that shit. I’m not belittling it.”
“You are,” I argued. “But I get your point. I had it easy. It could have been a lot worse, so I should stay here in your cosy little prison so I don’t experience something even worse.”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of me,” he laughed, bitter, a little twisted.
“Nope.”
“I’m not trying to manipulate you, warrior. I’m explaining why you’re having to deal with a soul-deep wound at the same time as processing your assault. I’m trying to—shit, I don’t know, give you context?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me, or telling me?”
“God, it’s like talking to myself,” he muttered.
“Sosorry I’m not more accommodating. Would you prefer me to be a sweet, submissive little omega who falls over herself to listen to every word you say?”
“That voice is disturbing. You sound like a possessed doll in a horror film.”
