Page 15

15

DORIN

It’s three in the morning when I wake from my phone buzzing.

“What?” I snap as I answer the call.

“Um, it’s that girl you keep in cell one. I’m sorry to wake you, it’s just—”

“What is it with her?” Having a bad feeling, I’m already out of bed, pulling on my jeans with one hand as I try to get a sensible explanation out of the idiot on guard duty tonight.

“Did someone touch her?”

“No!” he all but gasps.

“We didn’t lay a hand on her, I swear.”

“Then tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“She’s panicking, says she can’t breathe. I think she’s about to pass out.”

“You’d better make sure she doesn’t,” I snap and hang up, hurrying out of the bedroom.

Rex is already at the front door, wide awake and alert with his tail wagging and tongue sticking out of his mouth, watching me eagerly as I stick my feet into my boots.

“Sorry, buddy,” I say, giving him a pat on the head.

“It’s not time for our morning run yet.”

Leaving him behind, I rush down the seven flights of stairs, cursing myself for having picked the rooms in the tower—isolated and undisturbed, but as far away from my little songbird as I can get.

My heart is hammering against my rib cage once I reach her cell.

Not because of exertion but because I’m goddamned scared.

I’m about to bark at the two guards and demand to know what happened.

But when I see the fragile girl huddled in the corner, head pressed between her knees as she hyperventilates, I flip straight from punish-mode to another mode far less violent but equally urgent.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I demand, rushing into the cell and pulling the shaking girl into my arms.

“Get me something hot to drink,” I call out after them.

One of the idiots sticks his head back in.

“What?”

“Something hot to drink,” I enunciate with a sharp edge.

“And some chocolate.”

He gives me a confused look but hurries off, nonetheless—hopefully to do what I said if he knows what’s good for him.

“Breathe in through your nose and hold it for a few seconds,” I tell her, remembering how my old boss used to handle his daughter’s panic attacks back when I was a bodyguard for a Russian mobster many years ago.

She draws in a shuddery breath, but I can tell it’s superficial, and the air goes straight back out.

“Uh-uh, deeper.”

“I can’t,” she whimpers, trying and failing again.

I turn her around, grabbing her arms as I seek out eye contact.

“Look at me,” I demand, feeling a bit panicked myself when she shakes her head and keeps her eyes down.

“Look at me,” I try again with the bite that usually makes everyone obey.

It doesn’t help.

If anything, she seems to curl more in on herself.

I take a deep breath myself, then wrap my hands around the sides of her head and lean in close.

“Look at me,” I repeat, this time in a long, deep voice.

Her eyes flicker up and away.

It’s not much, but it’s an improvement.

“Good. Do that again and now keep your eyes on me.”

Her blue orbs are full of desperation, her brows knitted together as she finally lifts her gaze to mine and keeps it there.

“That’s it. Now breathe. In through your nose.” I draw in a deep breath through my nose, and a small smile plays at my lips when she follows.

“Now hold it.” Her chest shudders, but she manages to hold it anyway until I say, “And breathe out.”

Her breath gushes out, and then she’s hyperventilating again.

I make her repeat the in-through-your-nose-out-through-your-mouth technique, and slowly, her breaths calm.

A strange sensation warms my chest as she sits there, watching me with big round eyes, breaths coming in shuddery, but slow drags.

I think it might be pride—in her for doing it and maybe a little in myself for making her do it.

It’s a strange sensation.

One I don’t get to linger on as the guard returns.

“I’m really sorry I woke you up,” he says, voice strained, as he comes in and places a small tray with a steaming cup of tea and a bowl of chocolate beside us.

“Just shut up and get out,” I whisper to not cause my songbird any further shock.

“And close the door,” I add.

I want to be alone with her.

And she needs to feel safe.

“Is he here? Has he found me?” she asks in a weak voice, turning her head to look frantically around her as the door closes.

“No one’s here. It’s just me,” I assure her.

“But is he here? ”

“Who?”

“Zoltan.”

Of course.

She’s talking about the man who hurt her.

The man who cut her up and stubbed out cigarettes on her skin.

The man I’m itching to kill each and every time I look at the many scars he left on her body.

I promised her I’d kill him, and I fully intend to do so.

Right now, though, I’m too caught up here, making sure none of the idiots touch my songbird, to go chase down some rich bastard.

If he’s as powerful as she suggested, he’ll be easy enough to find once I do decide to go looking for him, and I’ll make sure to make his death extra painful to compensate for the extra time I’m giving him.

I capture her head between my hands again.

“Zoltan is not here. You’re safe. I’ll protect you. No one’s gonna touch you here. No one but me. Do you see how those men cowered and fled?”

She gives a slight shake of her head, then seems to remember and nods.

“They’ll do whatever I say. You’re safe here. You’re under my protection.”

I pull her close, and the feeling as she burrows into me calms my pounding heart that I didn’t even realize was still hammering.

“I’ll protect you,” I say, and the sincerity I put into those words takes me aback.

I don’t know what it is about this girl, but she brings out new sides of me—sides I’ve never encountered before.

As I feed her chocolate and tea, I only find it growing, making me want to stay.

I ease us both onto the mattress and nestle her into me, just lying there with her for a while, enjoying the calm feeling of her slow breaths as she sinks into me and finds peace.

“What happened?” I finally inquire.

I’m about to ask if any of the men touched her but stop myself, remembering that I have an illusion to maintain.

What’s already happened tonight has probably done plenty to make her question it.

“Nightmare,” she says, tension seeping back into her muscles.

“Was it Zoltan?”

She gives a slow nod as a shuddery breath passes through her lips.

“What did he do?”

I’ve never cared to listen to anyone for long, but as my little songbird tells me about her dream, I find myself wanting to know it all.

I ask about her life, how she met Zoltan, and how she got away.

I listen attentively as she tells me how she lost her mother and her sister in a fire, which burned down her childhood home and everything she ever held dear, while she was out, trying to earn enough money to keep said home.

I listen as she tells me how she struggled to get by on the streets, all alone.

How Zoltan found her singing at a bar, took her from homeless poverty, and promised to give her a better life, then gave her hell.

Anger boils inside me as she tells me how he gradually ramped up the abuse and how she finally ran off after she’d passed out from the pain, realizing that the next time, or the time after that, she might not wake up again.

“That night was a year before you found me. To the date.” She gives a humorless laugh.

“I spent a year going from place to place, living off what little I could earn from singing, hoping I could find something—anything—for me out there. All I found was more misery, only in new shapes and forms. I decided to give it a year. If nothing got better, I would take control over my own life and end it on my own terms.” She makes a shuddery sigh.

“But I guess I wasn’t strong enough.”

I prop myself up on my elbow, gently turning her to lie on her back.

“You know what I thought when I found you?”

“No.”

“I found you so brave for making that decision.”

“Brave? I couldn’t even cut deep enough.”

“You still made the decision, to go there. I never could do that. I was always weak like that.”

“Weak? How could you even say that?” She lifts her hand, touching her slender fingers to my face.

The gesture is startling, and I nearly pull away.

But as she curves her hand around my cheek, the warmth of her palm connecting with my skin, I lift my own hand, covering hers to keep it there.

“There’s nothing weak about you.” She looks back and forth between my eyes.

“I believe you when you say you’ll protect me. There’s no one else I’d feel safer hearing those words from.”

My pulse speeds up as I stare at her, utterly mesmerized by her beauty, her words, her vulnerability, and the strength that shines through despite her brokenness.

I want to absorb her so I can be close to that strength all the time.

I want to absorb her utterly and completely, but I’m afraid I will taint her beauty and lose it for good.

Things always have a way of withering and wilting close to me.

At that moment, I decide that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen to my sweet songbird.

I don’t know how, so that’s something I’ll have to figure out.

For now, I’ll go easy on her, and instead of trying to get closer, I remain where I am and ask her to give me the one thing she can give without risking me ruining it.

“Sing to me.”