Chapter 46

Man was a regular around the Compound for as long as I can remember. I’m not exactly sure when I first saw him; time moved differently in the Compound—slow and sluggish, like molasses.

I distinctly remember, though, when I met the real Man. I was eight years old when he revealed his true face, the face of a monster.

He never bothered to hide his identity from me, never bothered to conceal his grotesque face. Why should he? I was a blind, dumb child who still cried for a mother I’d never met. He took one look at me and dismissed me the way everyone did.

I remember that day vividly. The images were tattooed on my mind, etched into the skin behind my closed eyelids.

It’s the first time I looked evil in the face. Even to me, a person who indirectly saw horrors every day of her life, he appeared monstrous, though I was under no misconception the others perceived him as that. I heard the ladies whisper about him when they thought I wasn’t listening. Handsome. Powerful. Rich. Three words that meant nothing to a prisoner like me.

What they saw was a charming man—dark, slicked-back hair, revealing a proud and arresting face. High cheekbones, a strong jawline, and wrinkles around his eyes that betrayed his true, ancient age.

But what I saw in private, when we were alone, was the evil lying in wait just underneath his skin. Eyes red as fire and fangs that contorted his mouth when he smiled, showing the remnants of blood on his teeth.

When I first saw his reflection in the window of the torture room, I’d accepted the inevitable conclusion that I’d been kidnapped by a monster. An honest-to-god monster. He looked like something that could crawl out from underneath your bed.

He only got scarier over time, colder and meaner as the days dragged on. And as the years passed, his beatings became more frequent and took me longer to heal from.

Man was a monster, through and through.

I still remember his cold, grating voice; it’d slithered down my spine like a snake. “You’re mine, Little Monster. I made you.”

What he made was a trembling, terrified girl with an ingrained need to escape and make a name for herself. To become something more than his plaything and prisoner.

Seeing his face on Kai’s wall…

I am suddenly that scared child again, shivering beneath my scratchy blanket as I attempt to ward off the monster.

As I stare through my dragon’s eyes at the photograph, a ball of lead forms in my stomach. Even after all these years, his abuse still haunts me.

Kai stalks forward and points to the picture of Lionel. “Him?” he asks, disbelief evident in his tone.

“No, him.” I point to the other man, the dark-haired, red-eyed one.

“Raphael?” Abel questions in disbelief.

Raphael Turner.

The man whose death I was arrested for.

The man who tortured and beat me to a pulp, leaving behind nothing but bruised, mottled skin.

The man whose face haunted my every waking moment.

Man.

“Fuck,” Kai murmurs, stumbling away from the pictures. He, too, experienced Man’s abuse firsthand, though, unlike me, he never saw his face.

Nausea causes my stomach muscles to tighten.

No. No. No. No.

“Trouble, you need to calm down,” Cain whispers, brushing at a strand of my black hair. “Your body is still healing, and you shouldn’t get so worked up.”

Healing?

Distant memories return in flashes of light. Tessa’s furious eyes. The ring. My refusal to fight. And pain. So much pain.

“How long have I been out?” I whisper, pulling out of Kai’s mind and sliding into Cain’s. The sex demon is staring at me intently, his gaze sliding over the yellowing bruises on my face and then down to my wrapped ribs. The longest I was ever incapacitated back at the Compound was a couple of weeks, and that was after being an inch from death. Only my unknown supernatural blood saved me then. Apparently, it also saved me now.

At some point, the guys must’ve washed me. The blood and grime have been cleaned off, and I’m dressed in a comfortable white nightgown. Even my hair has been brushed and braided. My nails have a fresh coat of pink paint on them as well.

“Two weeks,” Cain answers, voice choked.

Two weeks.

Two weeks, I have been unconscious and unresponsive, my body struggling to heal itself and repair the damage inflicted. Tessa really did a number on me.

Phantom pain cascades down my arms and legs, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s a dull ache, a pressure almost, like when you fall asleep on your arm, causing the limb to go numb. The worst pain centers around my stomach, where I have no doubt broken one or two ribs.

“And how’s Tessa?” I query. Does she regret hurting me? Is she sorry?

Silence descends in the cell, nearly suffocating me.

“Tessa?” I repeat somewhat desperately. But before they can even speak, I know the answer. They may be kind and gentle with me, but in their cores, they’re hardened, possessive men.

“I killed her,” Braelyn admits at last, leaving me stunned and slacked-jawed. “I pledged my loyalty to you. I promised that no harm would come to you when you’re under my care. She caused me to break that promise.”

My head reels with this new information as pain grips my heart, squeezing until all the blood in my body rushes straight there. A part of me hated Tessa for what she did to me, what she wanted to do. I’m under no misguided notion that she would have spared me if Kai hadn’t stopped the fight. Another part of me grieves for her, grieves my friend.

“Don’t cry, Bambi. Please. You know I hate tears. They make me ragey, and you really don’t want to see me like that,” Abel pleads, moving to stand beside his brother.

“This is too much,” I whimper. “Raphael. Man. Tessa. It’s just too much.” I continue to mutter incoherent words and phrases. I don’t know if they understand me—heaven only knows, I don’t understand myself—but the more I talk, the calmer I become. I no longer feel like I’m stuck in the vicious winds of a hurricane. Instead, I’m resting in the eye of the storm. I have no idea how long the peace will last, but I revel in it while I can.

Calmness cascades through me like a summer’s breeze, blowing the doubt and anger away.

Okay, Nina. Calm down. You’re no help to anyone if you allow your emotions to consume you.

“So, what do we do now?” I ask weakly. I push myself onto my elbows to move into a sitting position. Bronson’s whine has me pausing, turning in the direction of the noise gradually coming closer to me. A moment later, his wet nose rubs against my hand.

“I’m okay, Bron,” I whisper, petting his coarse fur. “I’m okay.”

The wolf steps away, and very human hands caress my cheeks. Gently, as to not disturb my numerous injuries, he parts my lips with his thumb.

“You’re okay. You’re okay.” He seems to be reminding himself as well as me. Still keeping his hands on me, he drags me into a sitting position on the table, allowing me to use his muscular, bare chest as a backrest.

Bronson. My shadow wolf. The man who has always—and will always—look after me. I feel so safe and treasured in his arms.

“So, Raphael Turner worked in the Compound,” Damien mumbles harshly. He’s silent for a moment, contemplative, before he says, “That explains why they found your blood beneath his fingernails and his blood on you. Didn’t you tell me you guys fought during the escape?”

I swallow down a lump the size of an acorn. “He scratched me,” I admit. “During the escape, he scratched me, and I attacked him.”

There’s a long, potent pause as we all consider the implications.

“But you didn’t kill him?” Cain asks for clarification.

I gape. “Of course not!” Though the prospect of killing him had occurred to me numerous times during my stints down in the torture room. It was always a fleeting thought, there and gone in only seconds, but it was a thought all the same. I had contemplated the fragility of life and how easy it was to destroy.

I don’t know if I was referring to Man’s life or my own.

“I’ve done months of research on Raphael fucking Turner and never stumbled across anything like this,” Damien snaps. I have a feeling, however, that his ire isn’t directed at us but at himself. He likely blames himself for not seeing this connection sooner.

“He was obviously good at covering his tracks,” Abel muses. He grabs my hand and absently plays with my fingers. Heat travels through me from that small connection, blossoming in my core.

“He probably hid the Compound under the guise of one of his charities,” Cain adds. “Fuck, he probably even had fundraisers to raise money for his sick fetish.”

“But why did he have the Compound to begin with? Why did he participate? What was the purpose?” Kai fires off. When Cain swivels his gaze towards him, I see the dragon shifter pacing in agitation. He pulls at the strands of his dark hair, making them appear even more disheveled.

“Because he’s a sick fuck,” Bronson rumbles, sniffing my neck. Goose bumps skitter across my body at the contact. “Who knows why sick people do sick things.”

“I doubt the other council members know about this,” Damien theorizes. “It’s too fucked-up, even for them.”

“So, we know that Raphael Turner wasn’t the saint everyone suspected him to be,” Abel says. “We know that he actually ran an illegal Compound, where he tortured and abused young supernaturals. We know that he was murdered after Nina escaped. But why? None of this makes sense. Why did they kidnap Nina and Kai in the first place? Why them?” He releases a heavy sigh, brushing my hand across his lips in a tender kiss. In a quieter voice, meant for my ears alone, he whispers, “I’m sorry all of this happened to you.”

“I just don’t understand.” I feel the beginning of tears in my eyes. “Why me? Why does all this stuff have to happen to me?”

It’s a question that haunted me when I sat in the dingy, seven-by-seven cell. It’s a question that reverberated through my mind when I was strapped to the table in the torture room. I questioned it again in the ring with Tessa, a friend turned enemy.

Why me?

“I don’t know, my queen,” Bronson replies in my ear. He nibbles on my earlobe once before he releases me. “But I swear to you, we’ll figure it out. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.