Chapter 60
Imogen
I remember lying here like this less than twenty-four hours ago, but somehow in another lifetime, staring at him while he
sleeps. I distinctly remember thinking that if I could permit myself to believe in true, real happiness—the kind that lasts—then
it would be waking with his arms wrapped around me and my cheek pressed against his chest, my muscles aching from all the
pleasure our bodies took from each other in the night.
But yesterday was a lifetime ago, when he was Lincoln Knight and not Killian Wolfe.
I trace my fingertips over the mottled scars on the right side of his chest. I know he thinks they make him monstrous, but
not to me. They were always a beautiful part of the beautiful whole of him. Until I realized how he must have got them in
the first place.
So how? How can he touch me like he does, kiss me the way he does, make my body sing the way he does if it’s not real?
I lie on my side and go on watching him sleep, his hand gripping my hip possessively even in his slumber.
Is that because he can’t bear to let me go?
Or because he doesn’t want me to escape?
It feels like the former. When I’m with him, everything feels right in a way that it never has in my life.
He makes me feel like I can be me. Doesn’t he?
Because the truth is I don’t know who I am.
I was the person I was trained to be for eighteen years, and then for the last six months .
. . who knows. Maybe I became the woman Killian wanted me to be.
And what really happened to my parents? Do I believe my grandfather—a man who taught me loyalty, who saved my life, yet only
ever showed me cruelty at worst and indifference at best? Or do I believe in Killian? My godfather. A man who murdered my
parents. A man who should have protected me when I was a child instead of allowing the Brotherhood to make a deal with my
grandfather. A man who has lied to me from the moment we met. The same man who tells me he loves me and has shown me more
kindness and compassion in a few months than I’ve ever known in my whole life.
I refuse to believe that everything between us has been a lie, and I do believe that in his own way, he loves me. But I live
in a world where truth and lies can’t be so easily distinguished from the other, and more importantly, a world where I no
longer trust my own judgment.
What I do know as fact is that man in the photograph is the man lying next to me. My godfather. And whatever his motives,
he’s lied to me from the moment we met. For that reason alone, I need to discover my own truth, and the only way to do that
is alone.
Thunder rolls in the sky outside and I shiver. Instinctively, he pulls me into his arms, wrapping me in his warmth and pressing
his lips to the top of my head. “I’ve got you, angel,” he murmurs sleepily.
Tears sting my eyes. That his instinctive response is to protect me makes me falter, but only for a second. He lied to me.
Fact. He’s not who he says he is. Fact. And that is all I truly know to be real.
I may have been raised by wolves, but they taught me well. How to do whatever is necessary for survival.