He didn’t say what he must be thinking. That if it didn’t matter, there was no way she would have stopped him just now. “How long ago?” When she didn’t answer, he rephrased the question. “How old were you when you were .
. . hurt?”
She stared at the ugly brown carpet between her naked feet, not wanting to see his expression change from warm sympathy to horror. To pity. “Nine.”
He swore.
She swal owed painful y. “Of course, that was only my physical age at incarnation. As an elemental, I’d lived many centuries before that.”
“Bul shit. You were a little girl.”
She cleared her throat. “Technical y. As I said, I was newly Fal en, so—”
“Was it a demon?”
Demons hunted the Fal en, she had told him. “No. Just a sick, bad man.” That’s what she’d cal ed him in her head during the two days of her captivity. The Bad Man.
“Give me his name. I’l kil him.”
Okay, not pity. Fury. Typical male response. Useless to her, but warming al the same. “You’re too late,” she said.
“He’s already dead.”
Silence, while he processed this new information.
“Axton?” he said again.
She nodded. Simon had swept through the seedy apartment like the wind of God, a tornado of destruction.
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nephilim did not kil except in self-defense. Simon administered the Rule, he did not break it. Only that one time.
Only for her.
“So the son of a bitch did one good thing,” Iestyn said.
“That explains why . . .”
She stiffened defensively. There was nothing improper between her and Simon. “Why what?”
“Why you trust him,” Iestyn said simply, disarming her.
She turned her head. He sprawled beside her, lanky and golden and stil half-erect, his skin smooth satin over muscle.
For one moment, she al owed herself to yearn. To hope.
Maybe she hadn’t ruined everything. Maybe he could accept her past—accept her—and move on.
“You know, I have had sex since then,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, like she’d had half a dozen sexual partners instead of only one.
“With the ponytail guy.”
“Who?”
“Blond guy in the car. Your boyfriend.”
“Gideon? He’s not my boyfriend.”
“So this other guy . . .”
Jacob.
She almost smiled, remembering. Jacob had been . . .
Not perfect. But earnest and convenient and too wrapped up in his own reactions to worry much about Lara’s.
“He’d be the one who convinced you sex was no big deal.”
Heat crawled up her face. “Wel , it wasn’t. He didn’t . . .
And I couldn’t . . .”
She’d wanted to feel whole. Jacob had wanted to get 14 0
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
laid. Achieving their goals had proven more awkward than painful. After the first few times, they’d improved beyond cautious acceptance on her side and a fumbling rush on his, but the sex was never great enough to inspire either of them to keep trying.
Jacob had been honest breaking up with her.
