Page 41 of The King (Masterpiece Duet 1)
His voice breaks, but it doesn’t sound like the end. It sounds like a continuation.
This is where we’ve always been. I can’t walk away from the only family I have, from a person who actually cares about me. When Damon braced his body above me in his bed I had felt like a woman, grown and even sexual.
Now as I cling the phone I’m painfully aware that I’m fifteen, that my bed has pink sheets. That I’m only a girl who dreams about having her mama back.
That I want nothing more than a daddy who loves me.
Who am I to dream I could save Damon Scott?
Who am I to dream at all?
* * *
He finds me on the balcony, a wide marble-floored space with a carved stone balcony. From here I can see the expansive grounds—a lush garden and elaborate hedge maze. Rolling green hills and woods beyond. A view that carefully hides security cameras and armed patrols, an electric fence hidden in the tree line. Such deadly beauty.
I feel him before I see him, that prickling awareness that can only be Damon Scott. I’m sitting on an ornate metal chair, carving of Olympic gods cradling me with surprising comfort.
Footsteps come close and then stop. It must be my imagination that senses his heat. He’s still a few feet away at least. How can he heat me up like no one else?
“Avery says you aren’t eating,” he says finally.
She worries about me, which is sweet. I don’t really know what to do with that. I’ve had friends before, like Jessica. Even Brennan, but there’s always a careful distance. Growing up in the west side, we all know not to get too close.
“I’m eating enough.”
“She says there are nightmares.”
“Aren’t there?” I ask softly. “For you?”
That finally brings him around in front of me. It’s a shock to see him in daylight, maybe for the first time. The sunlight makes his black hair gleam. His eyes look almost luminous out here, but calming, the contrast to the sun a relief.
“I’ve had nightmares,” he says, his voice distant.
Unemotional, even though I know that’s a lie. No one experiences what we have and comes out unscathed. Avery talked to me about seeing a counselor, asked if I wanted one, but I can’t imagine what acceptance would look like.
Oh, that black pool with green tiles? Sure, I had a rough time almost drowning. I’m over it now. Anyone who says that is lying, so what’s the point?
He looks cold and removed, like he has somehow achieved the impossible.
It makes me want to tear him down.
“Tell me,” I demand.
For a moment I think he’s going to refuse. He’s going to keep that wall between us, thin now but crucial. Whatever we were before this—friends, potential lovers. Enemies. We’ve shared something now. We’re both survivors.
Then he sits down, the softest sound of his breath releasing. And in that sound I hear the wall come down. I feel it, erased from existence—if only for this moment. It makes every nerve ending tingle along my arms, my stomach. He’s been nearer to me than two feet away, but never as truly close as this.
“It started when I was five,” he says, breaking my heart in that one emotionless statement. “I’m not sure what happened before then. Nothing good, I’m sure. But I remember the training that started at five.”
“Training?” I say, horrified, terrified, but needing this. This connection.
“He said it would make me stronger. That people out in the world would hurt me. That I had to get strong enough to withstand them.”
My stomach turns over. “I’m sorry.”
“We practiced every day in that pool. There were other parts of the training. Other things I had to be ready for. In the other rooms, there’s equipment that—”
“Please stop.” I’ve heard enough for today. For a lifetime. And you only have to listen. He had to live through it. “How do you live with it?”
He looks at me then, his brow cocked in question. “What other choice is there?”
Dying, but I don’t say that. It sounds too dramatic, and besides, I don’t want to die. That’s not what I’m really asking. I’m asking how to stop the nightmares. “I feel safe when you’re with me.”
Because he’s the only one who understands.
No, that’s not entirely true. Even before this happened I felt safe when he was around. Not safe with the way he made my body feel or what he let my father borrow. Safe in that I know no one can touch me when he’s around—not even his father.
Damon is the only man on earth who would be glad to see Jonathan Scott. That would mean he could kill him. Or worse, probably. He might use some of that equipment.
“You shouldn’t,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I let you down.”
“No, you got me out of there.”
