In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)

“Shut up and stop being a goddamn martyr,” he said rudely.

He knew he was being belligerent when he should be more understanding and compassionate with her. She was clearly at her rope’s end and was on the verge of collapsing and she didn’t need him being a surly asshole to her. But it angered him to think of such a vulnerable, innocent woman in the clutches of some son of a bitch out there who planned God only knew what to do to her.

She flinched at the reprimand and he felt instant guilt when he saw the flash of hurt in her eyes. She masked it quickly, but not before he saw that his words had struck her like a dart.

“I’m not trying to be a martyr or overly dramatic,” she said in a low voice.

Sadness clung not only to her features, but to her words, and swamped her vibrant eyes, turning them from the nearly neon, electric natural glow to a more dull, sedate blue-green.

“I just don’t know what else to do. My parents are everything to me. My only family. They’ve given up so much for me my entire life. My powers impacted their lives even more than mine because they always made sure I was happy and safe and it wasn’t until I was much older that I understood the sacrifices they’d made for me.

“My mother calls me their miracle child. After my parents married they tried, unsuccessfully, to have a child. My mother was young, though, and my father wasn’t in a hurry. He would have been happy with just my mother if it ever came to that. But she desperately wanted to have a child.

“After countless miscarriages and my mother deciding to stop trying because the grief grew harder to bear with each child they lost, she got pregnant with me. I’m their only child. My mother was never able to have another. I wanted to be the perfect daughter, to somehow make up for the fact that my mother couldn’t have what she most wanted. A house full of children, love, laughter and happiness.

“They’ve always, always protected me. Sheltered me from the harsh realities of life. Maybe they didn’t do me any favors. Maybe they sheltered me too much. But I’ll always be grateful for what they’ve given me. Their love and their willingness to do anything to ensure my well-being and happiness.

“So now, when it’s them who need me, I feel utterly helpless. I don’t have the knowledge or skills to even know where to begin looking for them. So when I say that I feel like my only option is to surrender to these people, whoever they are, I’m not being dramatic and I’m not being a martyr. I’m a woman who loves her parents more than life and will do whatever it takes to have them back. Safe. Even if it means my own life.”

Sincerity rang in her words. Her utter conviction was evident in every single feature. Her eyes glowed once more but with purpose. Determination.

She didn’t deserve his censure. It was clear that Arial had never had to face the harsher realities of life, as she’d said moments earlier. She simply couldn’t comprehend that her parents would be used to get to her and it was obvious that she absolutely meant what she said when she’d firmly stated that she would do whatever it took, even if it meant trading her life for the lives of her mother and father.

That kind of selflessness rarely existed anymore. Beau was used to seeing the worst in people, not the good. His sister and sister-in-law had suffered the unspeakable at the hands of sick, twisted monsters. Evil was prevalent everywhere. In every walk of life. In those no one would ever suspect. Yet evil, the capacity for evil, existed in most everyone. True goodness, the kind that went soul deep, was a rarity. Most people wouldn’t be as selfless as Ari appeared to be, and he didn’t doubt her sincerity even for a second. She was utterly serious and that was going to make his job that much harder to keep her out of harm’s way while he and his men tracked down her parents.

“I apologize,” Beau said, hoping his words were every bit as sincere as hers. “It just enrages me that you’d value your life so little that you’d literally surrender yourself into their hands. It doesn’t have to come to that. I need you to trust me. Your father evidently trusted me and Caleb. Enough that he told you to seek us out if you were ever in trouble and he couldn’t provide help himself. So trust me not only to find your parents, but to protect you as well. And promise me you won’t do anything hasty because, Ari, you have to understand, even if you had allowed yourself to be taken, they would likely kill your parents once they had what they wanted.”

Ari paled, all the color leaching from her face until it was chalky white.

“I know this is hard to hear,” he said, lowering his voice to a more soothing note. “But you have to face reality. Whoever these people are, they clearly mean business and just as obviously think nothing about killing anyone who gets in their way, as evidenced by the fact a sniper tried to put a bullet through my head just a few minutes ago.”