Page 43 of Torment Me Knot
“So are you,” he breathes.
His forehead presses against mine. We stay like that, breathing each other's air. I trace the line of his collarbone through the too-big pajama shirt. I can't stop. Every second I'm not touching him feels wrong. He mirrors me, his thumb stroking slow circles on my hip, his fingers threading through mine.
His voice catches. He starts again. “They didn’t hurt us in the bath.”
“No.”
The alphas' hands on us. The purring. Being washed and dressed like we were precious instead of property. Aubrey's hand slides up my spine, slow, mapping the knobs of my vertebrae through the cotton. I press closer, tuck my face into the curve of his neck.
“I didn't hate them touching me.” The confession costs him. His breath shakes on the exhale.
“Me either.”
His arms lock around me. Tight. Almost too tight. I hold him back just as hard, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. I don't know why I need to be this close. I don't know why every inch of space feels wrong. I just know that letting go isn't an option. Maybe not ever.
“They were gentle,” I whisper against his throat.
“I know.”
“I keep waiting for it to stop.”
His lips brush my hair. “Me too.”
His hand cups the back of my head, fingers sinking into my curls. His thumb traces the edge of my jaw. When he speaks again, his voice is different. Distant. Like he's reaching for something buried deep.
“I had... good alphas. Once. Tom. Liam. Matteo.”
I go still.
“Thomas ran Haven. Before it was... what it became.” A ghost of a smile in Aubrey's voice, there and gone. “I was so young. And in love. He taught me to drive in this old Ford, the gears were shot. I'd grind them and he'd just... laugh. Never got mad. He told me I was capable. That I mattered. That I wasn't just... something to be kept.”
My ribs squeeze tight around something fragile, something that might be his grief or might be mine. Hard to tell the difference anymore.
“Axel killed him.” Flat now. “Him and Liam and Matteo. All three of them. Car accident.” His laugh is bitter. “Wasn't an accident. And then... Axel.”
Axel Turns. The name slams into me. I know that name. I know that man. He worked with Wallace. I pull back enough to find his eyes in the dim light. They're wide and wet, reflecting what little filters through the duvet.
“Gods.” The word comes out cracked. “I'm so sorry, Aubrey. I’m sorry he had you. You didn’t deserve him. None of it.”
The miracle is not that he’s here with me. The miracle is that he survived at all.
We stay there, breathing together. What is there to say? He knows what Axel was. I know what Wallace did. We're both still here, somehow, and right now that's enough.
“Sera is not like them. She’s different,” he says. He pulls back, watching me closely.
Different. Yes. She pulled me out of that hellhole, carried me when I couldn't walk, held me through the worst of the withdrawal. She's an alpha, but she's not the thing I see when I close my eyes and remember the cold rooms.
“She is different. She got me out,” I say quietly.
“Thank the Gods she did, because she brought you to me,” Aubrey says.
His hand cups the back of my head. My fingers are still tangled in his shirt. The kiss is soft. So soft. His lips are dry and a little chapped and I don't care. I don't care about anything except the fact that he's kissing me and I want more. I kiss him back, my hand sliding up to cup his jaw, feeling the scratch of stubble, the sharp line of his cheekbone.
His eyes are open. Watching me as he kisses me. Soft. My heart lifts so suddenly it almost hurts.
He's real. He's here. He's not going anywhere. For once, just this once, my mind and my body agree on something. Yes. This. Him.
His tongue traces the seam of my lips and I open for him, let him in, taste him properly. A sound escapes me, somewhere between a sigh and a whimper, and he swallows it down. His arm wraps tighter around my waist, pulling me flush against him until there's no space left.
