Chapter 2

2

S tone

I lead her back up to the bedroom, the other four men following behind us, Renzo Barone practically breathing down my neck. He seems to want to make friends. At least that’s what I think the monologue at breakfast about snapping necks was all about. Either that or he’s sizing me up, working out the best way to kill me.

I grip Rhi’s elbow a little tighter and pick up our pace, creating a little distance between me and the assassin.

In the bedroom, I tell her to lie down on the mattress.

“Are the theatrics really required?” she asks, climbing up onto the bed and lying down flat on her back. “I feel like you’re going to measure me out for a coffin.”

“I think it’s best if we do this somewhere comfortable.” I crack my knuckles, remembering the last time; how she’d flailed and writhed around on the hard floor. This time it could be worse, more violent – who the fuck knows – and I don’t want her injuring herself. Not physically, anyway. The emotional damage heading her way seems inevitable and yet she wants to do this regardless.

I hover by the side of the bed and peer down into her face. She stares right back up at me with those honey eyes and it’s easy to forget everyone else in the room. She’s so damn beautiful – I take it for granted. But every so often, I’m struck by it all over again.

“Stone?” she says, knocking me out of my trance.

“You’re sure about this, sweetheart?” I whisper to her.

She nods, resting her hands on her stomach.

“I trust you, Stone.” And stars, I wish she wouldn’t say that. I’m not reliable. I’m not someone a girl like her should put her trust in. “I know you’ll look after me.”

I place my palm on her forehead and then bend down to kiss her lips – unable to help myself. She tastes of butter and coffee, her lips soft and wet.

Reluctantly, I pull away, sigh, and close my eyes, letting my mind wander into hers. There’s no barrier there today. She lets me stride right in, like I used to when we first met, her thoughts and her mind completely clear to me, like an open book ready for me to leaf through the pages.

Right there on the surface, I find my own face staring back at me, and then I glide through her whirring thoughts – her eagerness to learn the truth, her concerns about the five men bound to her, her fears about the future. I’d like to linger here, understand her better, but it’s an invasion into her privacy and the longer I stray into her mind, the more dangerous it is for her.

I sink deeper into her mind, through her more recent memories, images of me, of Azlan, of the others, racing past my eyes, past her older memories of the house, of the pig, of her aunt, and then I’m there again, back at the box.

We already unlocked it and let out all those memories, but since then Rhi has suppressed them, driven them back inside that box, to protect herself.

I feel my body tauten, my hands balling into fists.

I don’t want to do this and yet here I am again, doing something I disagree with because this woman has a way of weaving me around her little finger. Stars, I’m a fool, a fool for her. But I made her a promise. Not just to help her with this, but to be by her side for life.

I brace myself. Then I tug off the lid of the box. It comes away with more ease this time and immediately the memories surge out, colors and images streaming past my eyes. Rhi tenses beneath me, but she’s stronger than she was before, more battle-hardened and fully aware of what to expect. Her mind rings with resilience and determination. She won’t let the dark memories suck her down, she won’t let them drag her into their depths.

I filter through the memories. There are the dreams and the memories of her and her aunt — the memories that terrorized her before. Memories of men chasing them, of hiding away, of her aunt taking beatings, and worse, from the men who came for them.

My nails sink deeper into my flesh. They endured so much — she endured so much. If I ever, ever get my hands on those men, I’ll smash them into smithereens. I’ll feed them to Spencer’s fucking beast.

But I’m allowing myself to be distracted. We didn’t come here for these memories – for the memories her aunt locked away to keep her safe. We came for answers.

There are more memories here, older ones, fainter, less vivid, memories from when Rhi was only small, her mind still learning and understanding. Memories of dreams again, dreams of the future and I’ve no doubt now – no doubt at all – that once upon a time Rhianna possessed the gift to see the future, to dream of it. Just like her mom.

Is that what her aunt was protecting her from? She’d seen what had happened to her sister. She didn’t want the same fate to befall her niece. So she found a way to make those dreams stop and she locked away all knowledge of them in Rhianna’s mind.

I’m about to pull out. I’ve already stayed in Rhi’s mind long enough. But then something catches my attention. A memory lurking at the bottom of the box. A memory unlike the others. A bright golden color not steeped in red like so many of Rhi’s other memories. No, this is different. This isn’t Rhi’s memory at all. It’s someone else’s. Someone else’s memory hidden away in Rhi’s mind.

Rhi was right. The answers were here all along.

I take a hold of that alien memory – one that doesn’t belong here – and I wrench it from my mate’s mind.