Chapter Nineteen
Helios
Not letting the fucking male nurse touch her, I grabbed the pills and fed them to her.
“Swallow,” I barked, already feeling fucking guilty for losing control and telling her too goddamn much.
Her lips closed around the straw, and she sucked.
I issued orders at the motherfucking nurse. “Leave.”
Fucker left, but not before lingering to make sure she’d swallowed the goddamn meds.
Releasing the straw, she turned her head and closed her eyes.
Fuck. Fuck. “Feralyn.”
No response.
Motherfucking goddamn it. “I’m not Ares.” I didn’t keep shit from her like he did. “I’m not coating the fucking truth in misinformation.”
“Are you saying Ares lies to me?”
Only her whole goddamn life. “I’m saying it wasn’t the right fucking time to tell you that shit.
” That was where I’d lost control. The second she’d fucking thanked me for my service like I was some kind of goddamn hero, that shit needed to be handled.
“I took out the fucking cell.” Ghost and I had eliminated every one of those motherfuckers.
“You never have to worry about them again. But I’m one fucking man, Feralyn. ISIS is generations deep.”
She looked back at me with both fear and anger in her eyes. “So you’re telling me there’s nothing to stop this from happening again?”
I kept my fucking mouth shut.
She exhaled with that pained expression that hadn’t left her eyes, not even in sleep. “I don’t even know how it happened in the first place.”
“Thank your fucking half brother for that.” Not that either of us would ever give her more details than that.
“For which part?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” Like next-fucking-decade later.
Her face fell, and the tears came back. “I can’t breathe through the pain and fear, but you want to talk about it later. About how ISIS is after me and you can’t stop them.”
“That’s not what I fucking said.” I needed to fucking rein it in. “I’m telling you I’m no goddamn hero.” Ruthless, calculating, I leaned over her. “But I am making you a promise. No one, and I do mean fucking no one, will ever touch you again.” Not even over my goddamn dead body. “You hear me?”
“I’m tired.”
I wasn’t fucking finished. “You were mistaking me for a hero, Feralyn.”
“I was mistaking you for my brother.”
I said the one goddamn thing I was absolutely fucking certain of.
“I was never your brother.” Protector, chauffeur, shit fucking excuse of a guardian, I’d played a lot of roles in her life, but I’d never been a goddamn brother to her.
I’d never loved her. I’d resented the hell out of her.
She was right. Haven had never been intended as a compliment or anything remotely close to a fucking refuge.
She’d been the exact fucking opposite. Every time I’d stepped foot in that dump of a house, I was reminded of our piece-of-shit parents and the upbringing Ares had been robbed of.
Turning her head, she hugged the pillow to her chest.
“Haven.” Goddamn it.
How the fuck did I tell her that somewhere along the way, shit had shifted.
How the hell did I tell this beaten woman lying in a hospital bed that I’d walked away from the Unit for her because I’d fucking die for her.
The smart answer was, I didn’t.
Lucky for me, the pain meds kicked in and her breathing evened out.
Percocet—the universal fucking savior. Saving her from pain and saving my ass from my own goddamn self. Now all I had to do was keep my fucking promise and protect her.
Protect my haven.