Page 144 of Carnal Urges

He’s gone before he can see me vomit all over the floor.

THIRTY-EIGHT

DECLAN

I wait for her in another room down the hall from the first. In almost two hours of pacing, I manage to convince myself that I’ll let her go when she asks me to.

Because shewillask me to. That’s a given. There’s no way in hell she can ever trust me again, not after this.

I can’t let myself think about what she might have been through in the past few days. Deprived of food and water, thrown into a cold, black, windowless cell, threatened with who knows what… I can’t think about how she must’ve suffered.

How she must hate me.

I just have to focus on getting her off this bloody ship and safely onto dry land.

A door finally opens. I spin around and see her standing in the open doorway. Our eyes lock. My heart stops dead in my chest.

She’s barefoot. Wearing jeans and a red sweater, both wrinkled and stained. Her hair is a mess of snarls. Her face is pale and drawn.

Her gaze is haunted. She looks like she might have recently been crying.

My heart starts up again, beating painfully hard. I cross the room in a few long strides and swing her up into my arms. Without a word, she buries her face in my neck, shivering.

We take an elevator up to the flight deck. Neither of us speaks. I walk down a short passageway, then we’re out in the cold ocean air.

I cross the flight deck to where the bird awaits. I help her in, buckle the safety harness around her, and put the headphones over her ears.

She closes her eyes and tilts her face toward the sun.

The flight back to the house seems endless. Mile after mile of ocean stretches beneath us before the shoreline finally comes into view. I land on the helipad and barely take the time to shut everything down before I’ve got her in my arms again.

I pass a shell-shocked-looking Kieran and Spider on my way into the house.

Kieran says in Gaelic, “How is the wee lass?”

“Alive,” I answer curtly.

I leave them behind, wondering. They won’t ask more, and I won’t offer any other information. They think it was one of our enemies who rose from the sea to take her. They think I made a deal to get her back.

They can never find out otherwise.

Oh, what tangled webs we weave.

In the master bedroom, I ease Sloane onto the bed. She lies there looking up at me with those haunted eyes.

Why isn’t she talking? Why won’t she say anything? How the fuck did I let it come to this?

I sit on the edge of the bed beside her and carefully take her cold hand. “Are you hurt?”

She’s silent for so long it scares me.

“They tried to make me talk about you.”

I’ve never heard her sound like this. Weak. Hollow. Defeated.“I know,” I say, stroking a strand of hair off her forehead. “I’m so sorry. There’s a lot I need to explain.”

I have no idea where to start, though. Maybe it would help if I knew what they told her in the debrief. Or maybe I should stop worrying about myself for a change.

“Do you want to talk about this now? Do you need food? Should I let you rest?”