Chapter 15
The first thing I felt was wrongness. My stomach lurched before my brain even woke properly, and I barely made it out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom as bile burned my throat. I dropped to my knees over the toilet, retching until there was nothing left.
I pressed my forehead against the cool porcelain, chest heaving. Confusion gnawed at me as I hadn’t eaten much last night, only a few bites before Lucien had decided feeding me himself was better than letting me argue. I should’ve been hungry, not sick.
When the shaking eased, I splashed water on my face, the pale, washed-out girl in the mirror hardly recognizable. The shadows under my eyes, the hair messy around my face, the faint mark of his bite still etched on my throat like a brand. His brand.
I wrapped a robe around myself and drifted down the stairs, my legs heavier than they should’ve been.
The kitchen was quiet, and for once, I didn’t care that this house didn’t feel like mine yet.
I wanted something normal. Boiling water, a mug between my hands, steam warming my face because it gave me a false sense of control.
The tea had barely touched my lips when I heard the footsteps. Ivan appeared in the doorway, broad as the damn doorframe, his sharp eyes scanning me like I was some puzzle he needed to solve. “You’re awake early,” he said, his voice calm but edged with that soldier’s steel. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine.” I wrapped both hands tighter around the mug. “Just… needed something hot.”
He didn’t look convinced. Ivan was the kind of man who didn’t believe in ‘fine.’ He leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “You’re not used to this life yet.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “You think?”
His brows arched slightly, but he didn’t move. Silence stretched until words slipped out of me unbidden, maybe because he didn’t judge, maybe because his presence was steady in a way I hadn’t had in months.
“I had someone,” I admitted softly. “Before all this. Before I was taken.”
Ivan didn’t react, just waited.
“He cheated on me. I found out a year ago, it was some girl he’d been screwing behind my back.” My throat tightened. “I thought I’d been broken then. Thought nothing could hurt worse. Guess life decided to prove me wrong.”
Ivan’s jaw flexed, but his voice stayed even. “Then he wasn’t worth your time. A man who betrays his woman is already nothing.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, to be honest I think I always knew, because even though I was with him it wasn’t as intense as it is with Lucien, but tell that to the part of me that can’t stop wondering what I did wrong for him to cheat and if that could happen again.”
His gaze softened, just barely, though the hard edge of discipline never left him.
“You survived what would have killed most people. That’s not weakness, Sorcha.
That’s strength. Don’t waste it thinking about someone who wasn’t man enough to keep you.
Cheating is always on the person who does it, never on the one they betrayed. ”
I blinked at him, surprised by the certainty in his tone. “You say that like it’s absolute.”
“It is,” Ivan replied, his voice carrying the weight of someone who’d lived through more than he ever said.
“Weak men cheat because they’re empty inside.
They look for something to fill that hollow and blame the woman they broke when it doesn’t.
It was never about you not being enough, it was about him never being anything at all. ”
The words landed like a stone in my chest, rippling outward.
For months, I’d replayed it in my head, every stupid little detail like the lipstick on his shirt, the lies that never quite lined up, the way I’d felt when the truth finally crashed down.
I’d picked myself apart over and over, wondering what flaw had made him stray, what I could’ve done differently.
And here was Ivan, a man who barely knew me, tearing through all of that with brutal simplicity.
Something in me eased, just a fraction.
“You sound so sure,” I whispered.
“I am.” His eyes sharpened, a soldier’s stare levelled on me.
“If Lucien thought you were anything less than worthy, do you think you’d be here?
Do you think he would’ve bled half the Irish filth across that warehouse floor to get you out?
Men like us don’t fight for mistakes. We fight for what’s ours. ”
Heat crawled up my throat, though it wasn’t embarrassment, it was that strange, confusing mix of shame and comfort. He’d called me theirs, Lucien’s. And instead of recoiling, part of me wanted to believe it.
I stared down into my mug, hiding the flicker in my chest. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I had to defend myself. For some reason, which steadied me more than the tea.
As I was going up to be with Lucien before he awoke, I found that he was already awake.
The sight of him stopped me cold. He was pacing, only in his boxers, muscles taut, the ridges of his back shifting under the low light.
The lines of ink scrawled across his skin seemed alive, twisting with every movement, every flex of rage vibrating through him.
Hours slipped by in quiet, the day heavy and suffocating, until his voice shattered it. Sharp and Ruthless. Each word was a blade cutting into the air. I froze halfway up the stairs, my fingers clutching the banister like it was the only thing keeping me upright.
The phone was pressed hard against his ear, his jaw locked, fangs peeking as if just the sound of the man on the other end made him want to bite through steel. His pacing echoed down the hall, heavy, measured steps that still managed to sound like thunder.
The word he said next… “Keller” …slammed into me like a physical blow.
My stomach lurched, my knees went weak, and the world tilted around me.
The air was suddenly too thin, too sharp.
My skin crawled, my chest tightened. Memories I’d buried clawed their way up to explode in my mind.
I had blocked out his name, blocked out the memories but now it came crashing back.
Keller’s laugh, Keller’s hands, Keller’s orders.
The terror he’d poured into me and the others.
I gripped the railing so hard my knuckles went white, my whole-body trembling, and I couldn’t tell if I wanted to run back down the stairs or burst into the hall and beg Lucien to stop saying that name.
But it was too late. I was already shaking, my breath coming short and sharp, and even from a distance I knew Lucien would sense it.
The name echoed in my head, splintering into a thousand ugly pieces. My breath stuttered, ragged, uneven. I tried to back away, to steady myself, but the wooden step beneath my heel creaked.
Lucien’s head snapped up. For a heartbeat, the world froze. His dark eyes locked on me across the distance, and whatever he’d been saying into the phone ended abruptly. The phone was gone, either shut or crushed in his hand, I couldn’t tell which.
He was on me in seconds. One blink of the eye and he was at the end of the hall, the next his hands were on me, gripping my arms, scanning my face like he was looking for blood. “What happened?” His voice was sharp, furious, but not at me. At the air, at the reason that made me shake.
I tried to speak, but the name tangled in my throat. I forced the words out, broken and sharp. “Keller...you said the name Keller. He…he was the one. The worst of them. He… he enjoyed it. The others, they were cruel, but him… he was different.” My voice cracked. “He hurt us because he liked it.”
Lucien stilled as something feral slipped into his features, his jaw locking so hard I thought his teeth might shatter.
His nostrils flared, his pupils narrowing to dark, dangerous pinpoints.
The fury rolling off him was suffocating, and I knew, it wasn’t directed at me.
It was at the man who’d carved scars into me and the others.
“He touched you,” Lucien growled, low and guttural, not a question but a sentence.
“That filth, that fucking animal.” His grip on me tightened for a fraction, then shifted, drawing me against his chest as if to shield me from the memory itself.
His voice dropped to a raw, trembling edge.
“Tell me exactly what he did. Every bruise, every fear, every scar. Because I swear to you, Sorcha, I will make him pay for all of it. I will rip his skin from his bones until he begs for death.”
I shook my head, pressing my face into him, torn between the terror of remembering and the strange safety of his rage wrapping around me. “I don’t want to…”
I couldn’t move. My body was locked, my breath shallow.
Images stormed through me of the things that happened at the warehouse, Keller’s smirk, his voice in the dark, the way he’d laughed when one of the women begged for water.
His hand in my hair, yanking until my scalp screamed. His threats and his promises.
“You don’t have to.” He cut me off, his mouth against my hair, his hands cradling me like I might break.
“You don’t ever have to say it. I already know enough.
And it’s enough to promise you this, he will die screaming.
” I felt his body go rigid around me, his muscles like stone, his breath sharp against my ear.
And then his rage erupted, quiet but lethal.
His words vibrated through me, as much vow as threat. And for the first time, Keller’s shadow didn’t feel invincible. For the first time, it felt like maybe, just maybe, Lucien’s fury was strong enough to burn it out of me.
The growl that ripped out of him wasn’t human. It shook the air, rattling down to my bones, the kind of sound that reminded you monsters weren’t hiding under the bed that they were standing right in front of you, wearing the face of a man who would burn the world to protect you.