She blinked and then flushed, discomfort evident on her face. “This isn’t appropriate,” she whispered. “It’s a sin for me to be in your bed. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think when I came in here.”
“Jenna, I want you to listen to me and listen to me very closely. First, I’m very glad you came to me when you were scared. I want you to always come to me when something—anything—frightens you. Secondly, I want you to forget every fucked-up thing you were taught in that goddamn cult. They’re wrong. You know they’re wrong. It’s why you wanted to escape so badly. Not just because of the shitty way they treated you and the fact they abused you and then used you for their selfish purposes. Aside from all of that, their teachings are wrong. Not just wrong but so fucked up I can’t even wrap my mind around it. I get that what they taught you, what’s been instilled in you for most of your life, is hard to just discard in a few minutes, days or even weeks, but this is where I need you to trust me, baby. You being in my bed isn’t wrong, and not just because we aren’t doing anything but talking. It won’t be wrong when I make love to you either.”
A horrified look crossed her face. “No! I don’t want that. I never want that.” She shuddered. “It’s horrible.”
A dull roar began in his ears and he had to clench his jaw to prevent the angry roar from escaping. “Did they rape you, Jenna? Did they put their goddamn hands on you? Did they force themselves on you? Did they ever force you to have sex with anyone?”
She shuddered again. “No, but I saw . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please don’t make me talk about it right now,” she pleaded.
“I just want to know one thing and then no, sweetheart, you don’t have to talk about it right now.”
He purposely injected right now because they would discuss it later. It was obviously a traumatic subject for her and he had to know why. Even if the very thought of having to listen to his angel tell him that someone had violated her was enough to send him spiraling out of control.
“Did one of those bastards ever touch you or hurt you sexually?” he ground out.
She flushed but shook her head. Thank God. He took in several deep breaths to rein in the rage that had threatened to consume him.
“I was a pariah. It was forbidden. But not for the reasons you might think. It wasn’t because they were protecting me or cared whether I was hurt. The elders had a stupid superstition that if I ever lost my virginity I would lose my power to heal. I was grateful,” she whispered. “Their stupidity and ignorance is the only thing I was ever grateful to them for.”
Finally he could breathe again, until she said her next words.
“But it was coming to an end,” she said, fear flooding her features once more. But more pronounced, more raw than any fear she’d shown until now.
Before he could demand to know what she meant, she went on, her voice trembling as much as her body was.
“I had always planned to escape,” she admitted. “It was the only thing that kept me sane. The idea of one day escaping. But they were so careful and they kept me under lock and key most of the time. The only times I was ever able to sneak from my room were after a healing session. Because I’m always so weak and exhausted afterward, they were more lax about watching me. They’d dump me in my room, but no one bothered to guard me. I played up my weakness, making it seem as though I was utterly helpless after healing someone. Then I would sneak into one of the elders’ quarters, where they had information that was supposedly forbidden. It’s how I learned of the outside world, what little I had time to learn. It was also the confusing and contradictory teachings of the cult. I knew it would take me time, years, to learn enough and plan my escape, but I didn’t care. It became my obsession and the way I’ve dealt with the punishments I received. I would imagine being free somewhere far away where I was just another face in the crowd and no one knew who I was or what I could do. I just wanted to be normal and to have a normal life,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.
Her sadness made Isaac’s chest ache, but more than that he wanted her happy, for him to be the one who made her happy.
“You can have that now, baby,” he said gently, palming her cheek and caressing away the tiny damp trails.
“But I can’t,” she said sadly. “They’ll never stop looking for me.”
“Tell me about they. Who is they, and if you lived in such seclusion, how would anyone outside the cult know anything about you or that you even existed?”
“Because the elders sold me to them,” she said bitterly.
“What the fuck? Who did they sell you to, Jenna, and is that why you ran?”
She nodded miserably, biting into her lip to keep from crying again. “I knew I had to take a chance and escape or I’d never have another opportunity.”
“Who did they sell you to?” he repeated patiently. “And are they the ones after you now? The ones who shot me and Shadow?”
She flinched, flushing with guilt. “I don’t know exactly who they are, but they’re dangerous,” she whispered. “They had guns. They always had guns. They offered the elders a lot of money for me but the elders had conditions. One was that I be made available anytime they needed my services and another was that I had to remain untouched.”
She flushed deeply. “Their leader wanted to speak to me alone and he told me I was his property now, and then he laughed and said, ‘Those crazy assholes believe that if you lose your virginity your powers will be gone, but you and I both know that isn’t true, don’t we?’ ”
She shivered and curled her body inward, pressing herself closer to Isaac, though he doubted she was conscious of it.
“He told me that he was going to enjoy fucking a virgin, that he would be the one to break me in, and then his men could have me as often as they wanted. He laughed more and told me that the elders would never have use of my powers again no matter what he’d agreed upon. He planned to kill them all when they came for me.”
Isaac swore viciously, his fingers curling into tight fists as the urge to kill returned. And he would. He’d kill every last one of those fuckers before ever allowing them to touch what was his.
“The exchange was set up for a few days later and I knew I had to escape. I had to take the chance because even if I died, it would be preferable to being sold to those men.”
Isaac closed his eyes, hurting for someone so innocent to have been exposed to so much evil in her young life. The knowledge that she’d embraced death so calmly as an alternative to being used and degraded by the men who’d bought her like a possession nearly broke him.