MENA
It takes a few minutes to get myself together before I can A – stand up and B – focus enough to pack a bag. I’ve heard women talking about orgasms but holy shit… I’ve obviously never had one. My sexual experience is limited to fade to black romance novels from the 1950’s and 60’s and some naughty translations of Shakespeare. Well, that, and my first week under Iva’s care.
I was only raped the once – not for a lack of trying – and it kills me that my mind drifts back there after the beauty Asher showed me. It makes me feel dirty and soiled for a moment before I shove it back. In my soul, I know the difference between what that guard took from me and what Asher and I did. I was a participant with Asher. I wanted it – more, I needed it. Fifty years is a long time to come to grips with sexual assault, and even though I didn’t have anyone to talk it out with, I was taught enough about love to know what was taken from me wasn’t my fault.
I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t deserve it.
If I’d venture a guess, Iva probably coerced or brainwashed that guard to rape me – not that it stopped me from killing him when he tried to do it again or his friends when they attempted it. Even if they were coerced, I still don’t feel a single iota of guilt for killing them. I don’t give a flying monkey’s butt if that makes me a bloodthirsty devil – I’m allowed to save myself from going through that again.
Heaven and Hell be damned.
In truth, I place the blame squarely on Iva’s shoulders where it belongs. What I do blame myself for are my parent’s deaths. If I’d had more control, if I hadn’t had to hide my abilities for so much of my life, I might have been able to save them. I might have been able to stop myself. But when I cast my mind back to the deep pulsing agony of the aftermath of my assault, I am unsure of any control I could have obtained in my long life that would have made even a little bit of difference. That scenario was orchestrated with only one inevitable outcome. Iva made sure she did the most horrible thing right out of the gate. She was just pleased she only had to do it once to get what she wanted. At some point, I’m going to have to tell Aurelia, but I dread it. She has been estranged from them for so long, I’m not sure how she’ll react when I tell her they’ve been gone from this earth for a very long time.
Will she hate me? Will she even care?
I dress in a sapphire blue tank top, dark jeans that have a slight flare to the hem, silver t-strap sandals, and a thin, pale blue, floral print cardigan. I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable dressing in anything that doesn’t cover my arms and back. The more I think about it, the more I want them covered with tattoos. My sister had a good idea to take her pain and make it beautiful. I’ll have to think about what I’d want inked into my skin for a while, though. I find a brown leather weekender bag on a shelf in the generous walk-in closet. I’d packed enough clothes for at least three days, and I’m on my way back from the bathroom with a full-to-bursting toiletry bag when the door busts open. My sister looks fit to be tied standing in the doorway.
“Is there something I can help you with, Aurelia? Or do you enter every room like a battering ram?” I ask as I stuff the toiletries in the weekender and zip it shut.
“You’re leaving?” she half-yells, her chest heaving in a way that looks supremely unhealthy. Out of the two of us, she should be the most adjusted, but right now, I seriously doubt it.
“I’m taking a few days with Asher.”
“And what happens when the King dies, Mena? Because he will. Asher is the King’s Guardian and will die right along with him! I can’t let you tie yourself to him only to lose him, Mena-girl,” she says through tears, but I feel like she just shot me in the chest.
“Asher is going to die?” I breathe in a daze as I stumble back, my knees hitting the mattress as I plop down. A loud buzzing in my ears blots out her voice, but I don’t need her to speak to know my decision.
“Yes,” I say, my voice cracking.
“Yes, what?” she asks.
“Yes, I’d go with him even if he was sentenced to die. Yes, I’d tie myself to him even if our days are numbered,” I tell her, my voice barely audible.
She looks dumbfounded for a moment before her voice goes soft and she asks, “And how many of those numbered days are you going to deal with the fact that you were raped under Iva’s care?”
“How do you know that? Did Rhys tell you?” I ask accusingly through my tears.
“Rhys knew?” she asks shocked.
“He guessed. He wasn’t with me for more than five minutes before he figured it out. If he didn’t tell you, how did you know?”
“I’m not stupid, maybe? You shocked Rhys when he tried to touch you, you wouldn’t let Ian examine you without a serious pep talk even though you had a major injury. Cam scares the shit out of you, but you don’t fear Evan or me. You don’t fear Asher either, which freaks me out. I don’t know if it’s the bond or him or you. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to be so intimate with him so early. And none of that tells me how you’re going to deal with it. I don’t want you to go through any more pain than you already have. It’s not fair to you.”
“With Asher, I feel a warmth in my chest that has been missing my whole life. I feel… happy. I can see he cares for me. I can see it in his eyes and hear it in the hum of his voice. I know because he puts himself in front of me, protects me…he jumped off a damn cliff after me. So, I don’t care if he has days or weeks or millennium. I’ll spend that time with him and deal with the fallout later.”
Her face tells me she is unconvinced.
“What would you say if I told you I killed my rapist? And the fifteen other men that tried after him? That I’m more afraid of Iva than I am of any man?”
“I’d say that you were well within your right to do so and that you were smart,” she says without blinking, and if there were ever a time to not bring this up, it would be now, but I have to tell her. If I wait, she would hate me for it.
“And what would you say if I told you I killed our parents by accident after I was raped? That I am more scarred by that, than I am of the single element of torture that Iva used as a catalyst?”
“I’d say there are some things you can’t take back, some things where a hypothetical just won’t work. I’d say I need the facts,” she says, and the shock and agony on her face make me flinch. Well, I opened this can of worms, I might as well tell her.
This is going to rip me to shreds.
“I was taken in 1965. I’d been working as a Gentry at a funeral home. One night after my shift, I was walking home, and someone came up behind me and snapped my neck. I couldn’t tell you how many days I was stuck in the dark, alone in my cell, before a Soldier brought Mama and Papa in and chained them to the floor. It took days before they were awake, and we knew pretty early on it was because of me that we were there. Why else would they put an Aegis in the same room with Papa, if they didn’t want to make sure that he wouldn’t see a way out? They tried to make plans to escape, but I think we all knew that we weren’t making it out of there,” I pause, taking a deep breath through the choking ache in my throat from my tears. “T-then a Soldier came in,” I rasp, “and he r-raped me right in front of our parents on the dirty stone floor. And h-he made sure it hurt. Afterward, I t-tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t - I couldn’t hold it. I blew up that r-room. When I woke up, Mama and Papa were… ash and Iva was sitting there clapping, congratulating me on a job well done,” I pause, trying to hold back my tears. “Are those enough facts for you?”
Aurelia appears angry and lost like I just took something from her. I suppose I have. But I have enough guilt on my shoulders; I don’t need hers too. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even blink.
“I’d say you’ve given her enough,” Asher rumbles from the doorway. He looks murderous, fully phased and if I didn’t know better, he seems to be ready to rip my sister limb from limb. She shakes from her stupor and meets his hard stare. He doesn’t move his black eyes from hers when he asks, “Are you packed?”
“Anything else I need, we can buy,” I say, ready to get out of this room and this house. I’ve done all I came here to do. I don’t need to come back for anything. He holds out his hand for mine saying, “Then, let’s get out of here.”
I nod and look to Aurelia saying, “I love you, twin. Even if I didn’t show it. I kept secrets to protect you and our family, and it kills me that you were mistreated because of them. I will regret my abilities and my part in our parents’ death until the day I die. And I will love you even if you can’t forgive me.”
I move around her, snatching my bag as I go, taking Asher’s hand with my free one. As my freezing fingers make contact with his smoking taloned ones, a sharp tendril of dread snakes down my spine. Not from his phase or his anger, but the realization that is just dawning on me.
He heard. Everything.
The tears I tried to hold back crest the dam of my eyelids and fall unbidden down my cheeks. While he may be my safe place for now, our bond and our relationship will be scarred by this. I never wanted to tell him.
Other than telling Aurelia about our parents, I never wanted to divulge my shame to anyone else. Not that I thought I would be around people. I’d planned on going away in seclusion, avoiding relationships and anyone else who I could possibly hurt or kill. And if Ash can’t forgive my past, I still might.
He meets my eyes, his ink-like orbs piercing my thoughts and my heart, and we travel together, smoking out of the room in a swirl of black. The trip is short, and he releases my hand once we’re outside to open the passenger door of a large coal-black vehicle with the word Sahara on the side of the wheel well in silver lettering.
“Get in, Princess, and let’s get the fuck out of here,” his low voice rasps, sending a surge of hope through me as I climb into the vehicle using the steel runner board to hoist myself into the black leather seat. Maybe I don’t have to worry about him not wanting me. Maybe I don’t have to let him go. If he only has so few days left, I’ll spend every single second I can with him before I lose what’s left of my heart when he goes.