In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)

Ramie’s soulful eyes connected with Beau’s, and he flinched at the stark pain reflected in those stormy eyes.

“They took her. I’m so sorry, Beau. I couldn’t do anything. He touched me. Had his hands on me. And the evil. Oh God, the evil. It was so overpowering. It flooded every part of my soul, and there was nothing I could do to ward it off. I was defenseless,” she said in a broken voice. “And then . . .” She closed her eyes, her face contorted with abject misery. “They told her that she had two choices. Go peacefully with them and they’d spare me and everyone else, or they’d slaughter everyone and take her anyway. But the end result would be the same so it was a matter of whether she wanted to spare our lives. Not her own. Ours.”

Ramie began to weep in earnest, huge, gulping sobs, where before her tears had been silent in her daze. She buried her face in her hands even as Caleb drew her in even closer, nearly crushing her with his strength. Caleb was pale, and he too looked at Beau with so much remorse and . . . pity. It made Beau want to vomit.

“She willingly went so they wouldn’t kill me,” Ramie choked out between heaving sobs. “And there wasn’t a single thing I could do to help her. I was utterly helpless!”

She beat her fisted hand down on her leg, repeating the action until Caleb finally wrapped his hand protectively around hers and brought it to his chest so she wouldn’t harm herself further.

Ramie’s gaze was haunted, a lifetime of regret simmering in her stormy, sorrowful eyes.

“She sacrificed herself for all of us.”

Zack and Dane dropped softly from the ladder, in time to hear Ramie’s whispered statement. Silence fell over the room as everyone absorbed the sheer selflessness of Ari’s act. Discomfort and grim determination were reflected in every single DSS operative. Eliza’s eyes were ablaze with fury. Zack’s features had grown so cold that Beau felt the prickle of chill bumps cascade down his arms.

“They hopped a chopper and were already in the air by the time we got to them,” Dane said quietly. “We couldn’t stop them. We weren’t in time.”

Right that instant the grim reality of just what had occurred hit Beau square in the chest. His knees buckled, and he found himself right back on the floor after rising just seconds earlier when Zack and Dane had reappeared.

A roar shook the room, the sound terrible, much like a wounded, enraged animal who’d lost his mate. Beau dimly registered that it had come from him. An emphatic denial, though he knew every word Ramie had related was truth. Pain like he’d never experienced welled from the depths of his soul, filling his heart with such despair that it overwhelmed him. He couldn’t find his footing and so he knelt there on the floor, numb with terror. Grief. And love so staggering that he was awed that he had the capacity to feel such depth of emotion for another human being.

Love? He fucking adored her. Worshipped the ground she fucking walked on. Love was a paltry, inadequate word to describe his feelings for Ari. Maybe he’d never truly find the words. But he would not lose her. Couldn’t lose her. Because, even if he could never convey with words all that he held inside him, he would show her. Every single day for the rest of their lives. But his vow was empty, meaningless, because the woman who should be hearing it wasn’t here.

Ramie broke away from Caleb’s hold, though how, Beau wasn’t certain because Caleb had what amounted to a death grip on his wife, as if by merely holding her, he formed a barrier between her and the rest of the world. A barrier to the pain and grief she was experiencing even now.

But Ramie crawled the short distance to where Beau knelt on the floor, his face buried in his hands, shoulders shaking as though . . . He scrubbed at his face, shocked to feel dampness covering his cheeks. He stared down at the wetness on his palms in bewilderment just as Ramie’s much smaller fingers slid over and curled around his.

“I’m so sorry, Beau,” she said in a tortured voice. “I let them take her. I wish I had her powers. God, I wish I had anything but this wretched curse to feel the kind of evil that took her.”

Beau roused himself from his agonizing suffering because this was in no way Ramie’s fault, and he would not allow her to torture herself one second longer. Even as Caleb’s lips pursed to form a protest, Beau held up his hand to his brother, sending him a look that instantly quelled his response.

“This is not your fault,” Beau said fiercely. “It’s mine and only mine. We spoke of moving her, of keeping her on the move constantly, never at one place for too long a time. I had yet to set that into motion. I was arrogant and careless. But maybe . . .” He cast a look of despair in Caleb’s direction, knowing he had no other choice. “Maybe you could help us locate her.”