Page 17 of Bound By Love
“Because I care about you, because Brie loves you, and because I’d like to know you better… to understand….”
“Understand what?”
Caro was trying to keep her patience, but if she emerged from this relationship with her sanity intact, it would be a miracle. “You!I want to understandyou. It’s why I ask you these things. I also want you to be happy, and I think Brie could help you heal old wounds.”
“Those wounds healed years ago.”
When Caro rested her hand against his cheek, he recoiled a little. “No, they didn’t, but I’m not going to push you on that either. I’m not asking you to change; I don’t want that. I was asking for more of you, but… but….”
Her words trailed off as she looked away, but Saber heard the words she didn’t say.You can’t give it to me.
His teeth clamped together against the fury building inside him. Why couldn’t he give her what she asked for? Why couldn’t he be the man she needed?
Determined to give her at least some of the answers she sought, no matter how terrible they were, and even if it meant she hated him after, he set her down. When she staggered a bit at the abruptness of it, he gently righted her. Her fingers curled around his as she gazed at him.
“Sometimes you regret the things you ask,” he said.
“Sometimes you do.”
“Yet you still want to know. Because once I tell you, you can’t go back to not knowing.”
Caro swallowed at the steely gleam in his eyes. “I’m only asking to know what you’re willing to tell me.”
Saber looked at the stars twinkling in the curtain of black. He didn’t see a moon, but it was somewhere, hiding as things often did in the night.
Just as he once hid and continued to hide from the memory of that awful night. He was being a coward.
Tonight, he would stop hiding.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
“They slaughtered dozens of children.”
Caro’s forehead furrowed at this unexpected statement. “What? Who?”
When his eyes met hers again, red filled them. “You asked why I left them and went my own way.That’swhy. They attacked an orphanage one night. They stole the innocence and life from children who had never known anything other than sadness and adversity. They killed almost every child and nun residing within.”
“The demons did this?” Caro squeaked.
“One demon went with them. They rarely go above ground and prefer to have the Savages do their dirty work and bring them back victims, but Kirkau decided to join the fun that night.”
“Who is Kirkau?”
“The leader, the worst of them, the thing demons fear.”
Caro gulped as the hair on her nape rose. Though it couldn’t be true, she felt eyes on her, watching and waiting to pounce. She restrained herself from rubbing her neck.
She didn’t want to ask her next question, but she had to. “And you didn’t approve?”
Saber prickled over her question, but he’d always told her what a monster he was back then. It was only right that she questioned him on it now.
“I don’t kill children…ever,” he said. “No matter how lost I was to the rage that turned me Savage, I wouldneverharm a child. I like kids; they’ve always held a special place in my heart.”
Before becoming a Savage, he’d always dreamed of children and a family. Now, he didn’t dream of such things. He had a mate but would be a horrible father; he was too broken to love a child the way they should be loved.
This revelation softened Caro’s heart. Sheneverwould have pegged him as someone who liked children.
And then, her hand went to her mouth as the full horror of his words sank in. She’d seen a demon and Savages in action, knew what they could do to their victims, and imagined they took great joy in the death of those children.
