Page 186

Jesse leaned against the locked door, watching me in his usual silent way. Roark drummed fingers on the scabbard at his hip, wearing a brooding expression that slitted his usually smiling eyes. And Michio, braced over the sink on stiff arms, looked as though he were seconds from ripping the porcelain from the wall. The large bathroom felt too small for all the unspoken things bouncing between the four of us.

I shattered the silence with an easy question. “How did you find the arm sheathes?”

Roark shot a weary glance at Michio’s back. “Darwin found them on the side of the road in Missouri. His nose scented them out the window of the truck.”

“That dog will never cease to amaze me.” I shook my head, smiling. “Thank you for bringing them back to me.”

“We have a rake of questions, love.” Roark shrugged out of his trench coat and dropped it with his scabbard on the floor. Then he reached over his head and gripped the back of his t-shirt, yanking it off. “I know you’re tired, so we’ll talk while we clean up. Just give us the highlights, starting with why the feck Doc took ye from us.”

Anger clipped the edges of his brogue. Evidently, the hug he’d given Michio an hour ago wasn’t one of forgiveness. And the second I removed the scraps of cotton from my body, his temper would explode, likely in fists raining down on Michio’s face.

I fingered the scarf around my neck, stalling. “Aiman knew Michio had the ability to track me. He used mind control to send him to my house— Wait.” I stared at Michio’s back. “I saw Aiman in a dream. In my home. If he was trying to lure me there, why did he need you to track me?”

Michio looked up and met my eyes in the mirror, his hands tightening around the sink. “I don’t think he knew about the dream. I didn’t know about it. We passed through Missouri on our way here from the mountains, stopping only so he could destroy the home you might want to return to.”

That was fucked up. Worse was imagining Michio watching Aiman burn my house while locked in his body, unable to stop it from happening.

“Hold on, for feck’s sake.” Roark’s accent thickened with impatience. “I’m still stuck on mind control.”

I opened my mouth to explain, but Michio cut me off.

“I’ll tell them.” He pivoted to face me, his body straight and stiff. “Take off your clothes, Evie.”

The hardness in his voice and the bore of his gaze brooked no room for argument. He could explain the mechanics of Aiman’s control better than I could, but I refused to remove a stitch of clothing without some promises.

Glancing at each man, I folded my arms over my chest. “No fighting. No weapons. No violence of any kind until everyone has heard everything. Promise me.”

I got three terse nods, but the tension in the room condensed, pressing against my skin. Their breaths lengthened, and their bodies flexed as they guardedly watched each other and me.

Two long steps carried Michio past me. He reached toward the ceiling and turned the valves to activate the shower head. It was the same modified set up as the other bathroom, just an attachment added to an overhead pipe in the middle of the large space and a drain in the tiled floor beneath it.

He moved away from the spray of the water and stared at me with an unwavering expression, waiting for me to expose the bite and bruises.

As I slowly unwrapped the rags, Roark removed his boots and pants. My insides clenched at the sight of his imposing nudity, my focus momentarily distracted by his cock, so full and heavy, hanging against his thigh and reminding me I hadn’t had an orgasm in over a month.

I caught him gazing at my body, not directly, but from beneath his blond lashes as he kicked his clothes away from the water.

Jesse stepped away from the wall, his stark glare locked on my yellow-spotted ribs. “The fuck?”

“I did that.” Michio glared at the bruises, his eyes like blood-stained doors into the dark dungeon of his thoughts. “I drugged her. Locked her in a cage for two weeks in the back of a truck. Made her defecate in a bucket. Froze her through the Colorado Mountains without so much as a blanket to keep her warm.”

The collected hike in breaths eroded away any calm that was left in the room. It felt as though someone had sprayed a can of bloodthirsty testosterone in the air.

“What’s he talking about, Evie?” Jesse’s voice was stone grinding on stone, his stance deadly still.

Roark paced behind Jesse, hands clenching at his sides, glaring at Michio.

Frustration bit at my insides. “Michio, don’t—”

“They need to know!” His voice was hoarse and thick with guilt, his eyes drilling into Jesse and Roark as if begging them to hurt him. “I punched her every time she tried to escape.”