Page 18 of Bound By Love
“Why would they do such a thing?” she whispered.
“Do you really have to ask?”
“No, it was a stupid question. You left after that?”
“I left the Savages after that night. I was with them when it started; I tried to stop it. I told them not to go in, that we’d find others to kill. But to evil, and I mean thetrueevil like the demons possess, the innocence and joy of children is the worst kind of offense. It’s also something they love to destroy.”
Saber had spent centuries burying this memory and doing everything he could to stay far from its hideous grasp. But now that he’d opened the road to it, he couldn’t stop traveling its bloody, excruciating terrain.
“I couldn’t stop all of them; I killed some as I made my way out with the children I could save, but I didn’t kill enough to stop it, and I should have saved more of them.”
“You did the best you could.”
Did I?That question continued to haunt him.
“How many did you save?” she asked.
“Only five,” he murmured. “And I remember every one of their terrified faces. One little girl never cried; she just held hands with her little sister as she clutched her teddy and followed me out of the building. She was the only one who didn’t sob, but her eyes….”
His words trailed off as he recalled those warm brown eyes with too much knowledge of everything bad in the world. She’d maybe been seven, and even before that night, she’d seen too much of the brutality life had to offer.
“I took them to another orphanage an hour away and left them there,” he said.
“Do you know what became of them?”
“Most grew up to lead normal lives and raise families.”
She wasn’t surprised he knew what had become of those children. He would never be the monster he believed himself to be.
“That little girl had three girls of her own before dying in childbirth. Her eyes were always well beyond her years. The screams of the rest of those children will haunt me forever, but I walked out that door and never looked back.”
Caro slid her fingers into his hand. Her heart broke when anguish etched his face before he covered it up. He may be the most stubborn, closed-off, pain-in-the-ass man she’d ever encountered, but no matter how much he denied it, his heart was bigger than most.
“You savedfiveof them,” she said. “If you hadn’t left with them, they would have died too. You were one man against Savages and a demon; you couldn’t have done anything more.”
But she knew he would always question and doubt that.
“Do you hate me?” he asked.
Caro hadn’t known she could hurt for him any more than she already did until that question. This beautiful, broken man was stealing her heart, and she longed to help him heal.
“I could never hate you,” she said honestly.
“I failed Brie by giving in to my bloodlust and not looking for her more that day,” he said. “And because of that, I went on to slaughter hundreds. I took the lives ofsomany.”
“You didn’t fail her; you saw a body and didn’t know she was alive. You’re trying to make up for what happened afterward.”
“Nothingcould atone for that or bring those people back.”
“No, but many more would be dead right now if it wasn’t for you. Think of the lives you’ve saved too.”
Saber shrugged. “Maybe, but none of it should have happened. I let my emotions rule me that day, and many people died. Maybe, if I’d paid more attention while I was in the fire, I would have seen it wasn’t her body.”
“You were burning too.”
“Not so badly that I couldn’t survive it. I should have taken more time and examined the body closer.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. Your mother was dead, you believed your sister was dead, and your father was on a rampage. Many would have reacted the same way as you, and some would have been worse after witnessing and losing everything you did that day. You couldn’t have done anything else.”
