14. Wren #3
I know what happened, ultimately. I was drugged, raped, and abandoned. I woke up the next morning in a room I had no recollection of being in, with a swimming stomach and crusty eyes, and pain that I knew wasn’t normal, before fleeing, terrified that whoever had done this to me would return.
Until I heard Ronan in the bar that night, I had no clue who had hurt me.
I would look into the faces of other students as I walked past, asking myself, Could it be you?
The unknown killed me for years. Made it so I wasn’t comfortable leaving my apartment alone.
So I didn’t go out at night. Didn’t attend parties.
Didn’t hang out with people from my class, because what if he was one of them? A wolf hidden amongst the sheep.
And then I heard Ronan’s voice, and memories I didn’t even recall came rushing back. In that moment, I knew. I knew with every fiber of my being that it was him. I knew it with such certainty that the fact that I could be wrong was inconceivable.
And now…
What the hell am I supposed to believe now? My fragmented memories or the men I know were there that night?
Blowing out a breath, I work to steady my heart rate.
I know I could just ask them—get them to tell me what happened that night, but I don’t know if I could believe what they have to say.
The problem is, there is no way to know.
My memory is never going to piece it all together—whether because of the drugs or to protect myself.
Nor am I going to be able to trust a third person’s account.
The only person who will ever truly know what happened that night is whoever drugged and raped me.
It’s a disheartening fact, but it is one I have come to grudgingly accept.
The thing is, Ronan, Silas, and Lucian…none of them have given me any reason to believe they could be the one or ones who hurt me. Other than my fractured memories of them being there, I have no reason to suspect them. No reason to believe they are capable of doing something so vile, so heinous.
Yes, Lucian is undoubtedly capable of violence.
Silas is a silent enigma I can’t even begin to unravel.
And Ronan wears his mask so steadily that it’s hard to know what truly hides beneath.
And yet…I doubt.
I doubt myself, my memories, and it is destroying me.
Opening my eyes, I flinch back against the bookcase, shocked to find Lucian standing directly in front of me. So close that I can see the individual strands of dark scruff dusting his jaw. I hadn’t even heard him approach.
My breath catches in my throat as he leans in close, bracing one hand on the bookshelf above my head. His broad body blocks out the world beyond him, until all that exists is us.
His gray eyes, like a tumultuous storm, bore into mine as he stares down at me, unblinking. For a moment, I think he’s going to kiss me again. I almost want him to. Instead, he speaks.
“You can trust me.” His voice is pitched low, the words certain as they slide off his tongue. “You can trust that I would never do a goddamn thing to hurt you. You can trust that, from the moment I found you that night, all I’ve wanted is to protect you. Avenge you.”
His other hand slides up the side of my throat, his thumb moving to rest over my pulse point.
A quiet possessiveness laced in something rawer.
Something sacred. “And you can trust that there isn’t anything on this earth that would change that.
Whatever you need. Whatever you ask. I will become it. I am yours, Wren. Just say the word.”
My mouth is bone dry, my head spinning with his heartfelt confession. “Tattoo,” I croak, barely able to string a sentence together. “You have a tattoo, right? A blue one.”
He nods, stiffly, clearly unsure but still willing to give me this. “I do.”
Slowly, almost reluctantly, he reaches down to grab the hem of his hoodie.
Pulling it and the T-shirt beneath up, he reveals toned, alabaster skin, stretched taut over ridged abs.
His hips are marked by a defined V that disappears beneath the waistband of his boxers, which poke out above his jeans.
My eyes instinctively follow that line, my mind wandering for a moment before I wrench my eyes up to the teal and black tattoo inked on his left pectoral.
“A moth,” I murmur absently. Tattered and threadbare, the wings are frayed and breaking apart. The body, inked in black, looks worn—almost bruised—while the wings fade into a soft teal that dissipates like breath into air. A creature that should be dead but isn’t.
The teal is so subtle that I’m surprised I remember it from that night. That I was even able to make it out in the hazy darkness. And yet, it is a memory that has stuck with me since the beginning. “Why a moth?”
Unbidden, my hand reaches up, the tips of my fingers brushing lightly over the design as though drawn to it. Somehow, I feel a kinship with this moth. With what it’s endured.
His muscles tighten beneath my touch, goosebumps pebbling his skin.
When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Unsteady at first. “Because a moth learns early that the dark is safer than the light. It hides. Keeps still. Pretends the flames don’t exist.” He swallows.
Shakes his head once. “But sometimes the dark isn’t safe either.
Sometimes it’s the thing that eats you alive. ”
He looks past me, eyes unfocused, as if seeing something far away. “When it’s over, what’s left isn’t whole. The wings don’t match anymore. Parts of you stay in that room, that house, that night.”
Silence follows his words, and I sense he’s lost somewhere I cannot follow.
All that remains is our steady breathing filling the space between us.
Slowly, his gaze refocuses, steady now as it finds mine again.
Still, there’s a hauntedness that wasn’t there before, a vacant look that sends a shiver through me.
I have this instinctive urge to wrap him up in a hug, and I have to force myself to remain still.
“The moth reminds me that I made it out. Even half-burned, half-missing.”
He gestures to himself.
“This is what’s left after the dark didn’t finish the job.”
My throat tightens. Something about his words, about him, knocks the air from my lungs. He’s standing here before me, open and raw, showing me the pieces that survived a kind of pain I haven’t dared name aloud. And somehow, the ache in my chest feels like it belongs to both of us now.
I stare at him, and what I see isn’t the violent, unpredictable Lucian Caulfield that everyone else fears. I see someone burned. Still smoldering yet still standing.
And all I can think is—
What if I never make it that far?
What if this is it for me?
The thought slams into me so fast, I almost fold under the weight of it.
“I don’t know how to get there,” I confess, brokenly, unable to look Lucian in the eyes. “I don’t know how to make it out.”
I feel him tense, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“What happened to me…it’s still happening. Every day I wake up, and it’s there. Like a part of me is still trapped on that cold, hard ground. Still hurting. Still screaming.”
There’s a long silence. Then I feel it. His hand, warm and steady. His fingers brush the inside of my wrist, grounding me.
His voice is rough when he finally speaks. “That’s because you’re trying to carry it alone. You’re still trying to survive in a world that acts like it never happened.” His thumb drifts across the soft skin of my inner wrist, back and forth in a surprisingly soothing motion.
His voice hardens, just slightly, with conviction. “You’re still in the fire, and you haven’t let it kill you.”
I look up, eyes stinging. He stares back at me like I’m the miracle.
“You’re already surviving,” he says. “You just don’t know it yet.”