Evidently, he’d made his mind up and was making me his. I didn’t know what to think about this at first then he’d laid it out for me. “Do you want anyone else? Do you think someone else would be able to give you what I do? Make you feel the way you do? Care for you as much as I do? Love you in the way I do?” My answer to each of these questions was a ‘no’.
I did ask him about that last question he’d thrown in there.
His words were simple as he smirked. “I know what I want when I want it. I’m not about to let it slip through my fingers and get away from me. Not happenin’. I let you fool me for a long-time, Kitten. Now that your light is shining through the shadows of the dull, I’m keeping you. You make me want to be more. You get what I’m saying?”
It’d taken everything in me to keep from crying. Because I felt that too. Shadow makes me want to be more as well.
The only thing we hadn’t talked about in the last five weeks was the fact Shadow knew who my father was. I do admit this does alarm me, and I can’t help but question whether my stepmother knows where I am as well.
So finally, after weeks of not asking, I lift my eyes up to meet Shadow’s eyes across the table at Marshall’s, the best steakhouse in the area. “I want to talk to my dad,” I blurt.
“Come again?” he asks, putting his beer back on the table in front of him as he stares at me.
“I want to talk to my dad,” I state.
“No one’s holding you back from talking to him, Luna.” Reaching out, Shadow grasps my fingers and squeezes my hand.
“What?” I’m baffled by this.
“Kitten, the only one holding you back from talking to him or your brothers for that matter is you. Those men get weekly reports on how you’re doing, and I’ll tell you now if my brother were still here it would tear me up the way it does your brothers not being in your life.”
Oh my God. I didn’t know he had a brother. Anytime I’ve broached the subject of the past he’s changed the subject. This is the first time he’s even mentioned a hint of his past.
“H–how do they get these reports?”
“I tell them. Sometimes we add a picture of you to the report.” Shadow shrugs as he shares this.
I pull my hand from his grasp and plant my hands in my lap as I try to control my breathing. This isn’t good. If . . . if they have pictures of me then my stepmother probably knows. A–And if she knows, then she’s probably looking for ways to finish what she started the first time. Well, I’m not exactly sure it was her, but I’d put my money on her being the one to sell me to Parker and the Delancys. That or she could have given them guidance to me.
“Luna, what’s wrong?” Shadow asks, his brow furrows.
Rather than answer him, I shake my head, my mind mentally closing in on itself, protectively, in preparation of anything to come at me.
“Kitten, I won’t ask again. Tell me what’s wrong,” he demands, this time moving from his place across the table to sit next to me and cage me into his body. This is a maneuver I have learned he uses when he’s not only wanting my attention on him but also when he’s shielding me protectively.
“I–I–I think it was my stepmother who had me kidnapped,” I stammer on the verge of a panic attack.
“Luna, look at me,” he commands, gently.
Doing as he commands; I admire the transparent fury radiating from his eyes.
“First, I want you to calm down. Remember, I’m right here for you. No one and I mean no one will ever fuckin’ get to you again. You’re mine. My woman, my ol’ lady, my heart and soul. I won’t allow anyone to take you from me. Got me?” I nod in response knowing he doesn’t actually want words but wants to know I’m listening. And boy do I like what he’s saying so far.
“Now, Luna, I need you to tell me, why do you think she had a hand in your kidnapping?” he asks.
Sighing, I close my eyes.
“Eyes on me, Kitten.” The command is soft yet firm.
Taking a shuttered breath, I open my eyes back up and meet his.
“Good girl. Now talk to me,” Shadow murmurs.
I tell him everything from the time my mom died and dad cheating on her with my stepmom the entire time. How she’d pushed me to the side to make sure my brothers were before me in everything. I even told him how my dad missed my graduation from LSU because he was attending a function with Cruella along with my brothers. I explained how she hated me and did everything she could to keep me at a distance from my family. She enjoyed being the center of attention and with me in the picture she couldn’t be that. Especially considering I’d intended to move back to South Carolina in order to be near my brothers.
Then I finally do something I have never done; I tell him about the night I’d gone out with friends to a club in New Orleans. One last hurrah before we all headed out to start our new journeys. I’d been drugged that night and woke up on the floor of a dirty smelling room. I finished by telling him I’d counted every day I’d been
