Chapter Five
Briar
Morning finds me before the light does.
My eyes snap open, anxiety lodged sharp in my chest. The first thing I register is warmth—heavy, steady, wrapped around me.
My fingers are curled in fabric. My cheek is pressed against skin.
A heartbeat pulses beneath my ear, strong and calm.
My body remembers it before my mind does—and that scares me more than anything.
Danger.
I jerk back so fast the blanket tangles around my legs.
I push myself to the edge of the bed, knees tucked tight, hands covering my mouth to swallow any sound that might slip out.
My throat burns. My chest aches. He’s going to be angry.
I touched him without asking. I slept against him. I moved wrong. I breathed too close—
I drag my nails across my palms, grounding myself against the sting.
He stirs behind me.
I freeze.
“Briar,” he says softly, voice rough with sleep. Not sharp. Not threatening. “You’re alright. You’re alright.”
I’m not used to being called by my name. My hands rise in front of me—instinctive apology, the one I always used. Palms open. Shoulders hunched.
Don’t hurt me. I’ll do better.
He sits up slowly. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
He doesn’t reach for me, hands staying visible, resting on his thighs. His gaze moves over my face, watching for the places I fracture.
“I’m not angry,” he soothes. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
A whimper tears from my throat. The noise is small and raw, but it still makes me flinch. I press both palms over my lips. No sound. No sound. No sound.
He shakes his head. “You don’t have to hide your voice from me.”
He doesn’t understand. My voice is punished. My voice is forbidden. My voice is the thing that brought pain more times than I can count. And when I finally lost it for good, it didn’t even matter anymore.
I scramble off the bed and drop to my knees on the floorboards, bowing my head. The posture speaks for me: Use me. I’m sorry. I’ll make it right. Just don’t hurt me.
“No.” His voice cracks. “Sweetheart… no.”
He’s off the bed in a heartbeat and kneels a distance from me—not touching or crowding.
“You don’t owe me your body,” he says, every word slow and deliberate. “Not last night. Not now. Not ever.”
My fingers fumble toward the pencil and scrap of paper by the hearth, frantic to explain, to show I wasn’t refusing him or inviting punishment. I tap my chest twice with shaking fingers. Then point at him. Then place my palm over my heart again.
He watches me, eyes softening.
“Safe?” he asks quietly.
I nod hard, tears blurring the edges of everything.
I write on the paper with a trembling hand: YOU STOP HURT. I PAY YOU.
My fingers tremble so badly the letters wobble and smear. I hold my fist to my chest, trying to power through the tightness.
He moves closer, slowly, his voice dropping to something low and golden.
“You’re safe with me. Not because you give me anything. Because you deserve to be.”
My throat works around a sob. I can’t make sound, so I crawl forward and press my cheek to the place where his heartbeat lives.
I just need warmth. I need him—and I don’t understand why.
Some kind of human connection that isn’t trying to destroy me.
God, it’s been so long. I forgot what that felt like. But I’m learning again.
Rafe stays kneeling in front of me, his hands open, waiting, anchoring me without chains. Even like this, I feel him—solid, steady, too close and not close enough.
I draw back slowly, wiping my face with shaking fingers. I need him to understand. Need to show him why I know what safety feels like only in moments of surrender. Why I came to him the way I did. Why silence wraps itself around my neck and squeezes.
I tremble as I reach for the pencil again, but my fingers keep slipping. I grip too tight. The pencil snaps. A cry rises in my throat, but I crush it down. My eyes burn.
Rafe takes a fresh one from the floor and places it in my palm, folding my fingers around it gently. “Take your time, sweetheart. I’m right here.”
I lower myself onto the rug, sitting cross-legged, and sketch shakily. My hand doesn’t remember grace. My lines come out jagged, uneven. I force myself to keep going.
A tall figure. A smaller one curled low. Hands closed around wrists. I tap each drawing. Tap my scars. Tap my throat.
Rafe’s jaw flexes, but he doesn’t look away. He doesn’t make a sound.
I draw again—circles around ankles, two lines to show tightness. I rub my skin at the place where rope once sat so long it stopped belonging to the outside world.
Rafe’s eyes lower to my wrists. He reaches, slow enough that I could flee for the door, but I stay. He turns my arm gently, studying the permanent ridges pressed into my body.
“Briar,” he whispers. It’s my name shaped by grief.
I swallow air that scrapes raw. After placing my hands on my own head, my fingers knot in my hair, and jerk lightly to show how I was pulled. The motion sends a tremor through my whole spine. I flinch at my own memory.
Rafe’s hands rise automatically—but he stops in mid-air, letting me see the intention, not the contact.
“Did he…?” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to.
I nod once.
He inhales through his nose, sharp and pained, but steadies it. He won’t scare me with his anger, so he cages it behind his ribs.
I draw a door next. A bolt. A small figure behind it. Then I curl my shoulders inward, arms wrapped around myself, miming waiting for footsteps that meant hunger or hands or commands I couldn’t refuse.
Rafe’s voice is rough. “You lived through that.” Not a question. A vow of acknowledgment.
Setting the pencil down, I place both palms over my heart. Then I reach and take his wrist, guiding his hand to the same place on my chest.
Here. Breathe with you near. Why I… to thank you.
His thumb moves in the smallest arc, grounding me. “I see you. All of you.”
No man has ever said that without wanting something in return. My eyes close. For the first time, the darkness behind my eyelids doesn’t feel threatening.
Rafe rises slowly and holds out a hand. I follow because the air around him feels steady, and my body is tired from too many years of bracing.
He ladles broth into a wooden bowl and brings it to me, kneeling so we’re eye level. The scent warms the space between us. He breaks off a piece of soft bread and dips it, waiting until it cools before lifting it toward my mouth.
I tense. Feeding always costs me.
But Rafe doesn’t lean closer. Doesn’t force the food to my lips. He waits until I open my mouth on my own. The choice feels small. It isn’t.
I take the bite. My throat pulls tight, expecting the sting of a hand or a command for more. Nothing comes. Only another piece of softened bread, held steady in his fingers.
My hands wobble when I reach to feed myself, so the piece falls. I gasp, scrambling to pick it up, heart pounding at the thought of wasting what he gave me. Before I can touch the floor, his hand cups mine—warm, steady, grounding.
“It’s alright,” he says quietly. “You’re allowed to drop things.”
Allowed. The word lands heavy.
I let him feed me the rest. Each small bite settles deep, strange and peaceful, easing something inside me one knot at a time.
When he brushes a curl of hair from my face, I lean into the touch before I realize I’m doing it. My body reacts faster than my fear for once. His fingers move gently, sweeping leaves I didn’t know were still tangled at the ends.
He stands and fills a wooden tub in the corner with warm water. The steam rises. My chest locks. Baths were weapons before—cold water, harsh scrubbing, hands gripping too tight. Then what always came… after.
He must see the panic in my eyes because he kneels beside the tub and dips his hand in first, showing me the warmth. His voice stays low.
“No one forces you into anything here. You move when you choose.”
But my body doesn’t understand choice yet. Shaking my head, I back away until my shoulders hit the wall.
Rafe rises slowly, walks to me with open hands, and crouches. “Let me help you. Just help. Nothing more.”
I nod once, barely. He guides me to the tub and holds my hands while I step in. The water touches my skin. My body jolts, but his grip tightens—not restraining, anchoring. I cling to his wrists until the heat feels less dangerous.
When I sink down, he kneels beside me. He wets a cloth and runs it gently over my arms. I tremble, swallowing every sound, afraid noise will bring punishment.
His hand pauses. “Sweet girl,” he whispers, “you’re allowed to make noise.”
Allowed. Again. My throat aches with the weight of that word.
He lifts the cloth and uncovers the bruising across my ribs.
The skin there is dark, tender, still healing.
For a moment, before the fear catches up, I see him.
Not as a threat or a captor. As a man—broad-shouldered, careful-handed, close enough that the warmth coming off his skin mingles with the steam.
Yearning stirs low in my stomach, sharp and unfamiliar—confusing enough that I freeze. I bury it immediately. Wanting is dangerous. Wanting always came with a payment plan. But the feeling was there. Small and startled and entirely my own.
He reaches for a tin of salve, scoops some onto his fingers, then meets my eyes. “Tell me if it hurts.”
I nod.
His touch is slow. Careful. He spreads the salve in soft circles. The pain sparks under my skin, but the gentleness shocks me more. My eyes sting.
I try to distract him the only way I’ve ever known—my hand sliding toward his belt, my body leaning toward his. Offering myself. Payment. Agreement. Safety.
But he captures my hands in both of his, holding them against my stomach. Heat spikes under my skin anyway, fast and unwelcome.
“No,” he says, tone calm and certain. “That’s not what I want from you.”
Confusion twists inside me. Want. No man ever cared what I wanted, especially when my clothes were wet and clinging to me.
“You don’t buy safety with your body, Briar. Even if it helps you breathe easier.”
I swallow hard. My fingers tighten around his. His words sound strange. Their meaning foreign.
He presses his forehead to mine. “Let me take care of you.”
My eyes fall shut as I let out a trembling exhale. For the first time in years, being touched doesn’t feel like being taken.
Rafe helps me out of the tub, tenderly wrapping a fluffy towel around my shoulders. I grip the edges tight. My skin feels new. Too warm. Too exposed. Every breath drags through me with a strange lightness and an old fear tangled together.
He guides me toward the hearth so my hair can dry. I sit on the floor, curled into myself, watching his hands as he stirs the fire. Those hands could break a man. But when they touch me, they ask instead of take.
I don’t know what to do with that.
The quiet stretches. It isn’t the dangerous quiet from before. This one feels… open. I can move inside it without punishment.
My heart starts pounding in my chest, and I press my palm to it. The pressure helps, but not enough. My muscles shake. Panic crawls through my ribs, the old kind that warns me to kneel, to obey, to give so the pain won’t come.
Rafe notices immediately. “Briar?” he asks softly.
I drop to my knees and crawl toward him before my mind can form a thought. Not for sex. Not for survival. For grounding. For warmth. For a heartbeat that doesn’t frighten me.
I bury my face under his jaw, putting my cheek on his throat. The thrum of his pulse steadies the shaking in my fingers. My hands fist in his shirt, pulling him closer, desperate for the weight of him.
He freezes, so I try to explain without words, lifting his hand and laying it flat against my chest so he feels my heartbeat racing. Then I tap his chest with my palm. Then back to mine.
Calm. Quiet the dark. Need you.
Despite his not being able to understand, the panic doesn’t let me stop there. My mouth finds the column of his throat, trying to soothe myself against warmth the same way I learned to survive. My hands slip toward his belt in a practiced motion my body remembers even when my mind doesn’t.
Rafe catches my wrists before I reach him. “No. Sweet girl… look at me.”
I shake my head, terrified he’ll twist my arms or shove me to the floor. I brace for it—muscles tight, lungs stalled.
But he only cups the sides of my face, guiding me to meet his eyes. “You’re not in danger. You’re not being punished. And you don’t need to give me anything to stay safe. I know you want to. That’s what you feel compelled to do. But I’m telling you that’s not what I want.”
My throat works around a broken sound. I tap his chest again, harder this time, begging him to understand. Then I place his hand on my cheek, holding it there.
His thumb strokes my cheekbone. “This? You want closeness. Comfort. Not sex.”
I nod so fast tears spill out.
Relief shakes through me when he gathers me into his arms and pulls me into his lap. My body moves closer before I can stop it. His warmth surrounds me, but his hands stay respectful—one on my back, one cradling my head.
“There,” he whispers. “Just breathe, sweetheart. You can fall apart on me. I’ll hold you together.”
I let myself fold into him completely. The trembling eases. My heartbeat steadies under his palm. His chest rises and falls against my cheek in a rhythm my body latches onto.
“I want your comfort, Briar. That’s the most important thing right now. That you feel safe in your heart,” he says into my hair. “No more terror, okay?”
I nod against his throat. For the first time, want and safety don’t feel like enemies inside me. Closing my eyes, let the nerves skating under my skin settle.
And the dark doesn’t press so close.