Page 30 of Shai

Mustering all the courage I could, I lifted my head to look at him. This was a very different man than the one I’d started the evening with. That one had been positively tame in comparison, the dig about spicy food suddenly seeming like no more than a casual jibe. This Shai was angry, his skin stretched tight over his cheekbones, flags of dark color staining them. His gaze fastened on me and it was all I could do not to shrink away from him. I needed to find a way of calming him down, of de-escalating the situation brought on by just a few minutes in his mother’s presence. Only, my mind had gone blank over how exactly I was supposed to do that.

“Ask me.”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly impossibly dry. “Ask you what?” I

knew, though. Of course, I did. The question was on a loop in my brain, just daring me to voice it aloud.

“Ask me.” The words were much more strident this time, laced with a

threat that made it clear that he would be more annoyed if I didn’t ask.

I lowered my hands onto my lap to hide the way they were shaking. “Is

it true?”

“Is what true?”

He was going to make me say it. He was going to make me put the ugly

words out there, and if he didn’t deny it, he was going to tell me things I’d no doubt wish I’d never known. The bottom of a river looked damn good at the moment. “Did you and your mother have a… sexual relationship?”

I jerked as he laughed, the harsh humorless sound filling the room. “It

wasn’t consensual if that’s what you’re asking. But if you’re asking if she came to my room when I was a child, and took it upon herself to teach me things that no mother should ever want to teach her son, then yes, that’s precisely what happened.”

“How old were you?” I had no idea why he was admitting any of this,

but the

least I could do was hide my horror at the picture he was painting, and

ask questions.

He shrugged as if age was of little consequence. “Eight… nine…

thereabouts.”

“Fuck!” The curse word slipped out before I could stop it. Shai didn’t

react to it, retaking his seat, his chin resting on his fist. “Until when?”

Shai pinned me with his gaze. “Until I was old enough to be stronger

than her, and I could stop her.”

Bile threatened to make an appearance and I swallowed it down. “I’m

sorry.” The words seemed completely insufficient but they were all I had.

Shai tipped his head to one side and studied me, his gaze roving over my face and pausing for a moment on my lips. “Are you, Elijah? Are you really sorry?”

I nodded so vehemently that the table shook, the food I hadn’t eaten threatening to spill onto its surface. “No child should have to suffer that.” That was an understatement if ever there was one. It was probably those events that had shaped the man he was today. No wonder he was twisted. He was the product of child abuse. Who would grow up normal under those circumstances? Only… he did live with her. “I’m surprised you haven’t... killed her?”

I was worried I’d gone too far, my heart pounding a furious tattoo against my ribs. I relaxed when Shai’s eyebrow simply quirked, his gaze sliding away from me to focus on the opposite wall. “I don’t want to be that man.”

“What man?”

Brown eyes returned to mine. “The man who kills his own mother.”