Page 126 of Dark Lover

She touched his cheek. “Ian is a grown man now.”

“Who hates me.”

She fought her own tears. “But we can forgive him, because we know what he’s endured.”

“Of course I forgive him! I love my son. An’ now that evil bastard has imprisoned him again. Ye ken what they did to him!”

Her husband knew because he’d lurked in Ian’s mind without shame, a father desperate to know the truth. Brie could only guess at the horrors Ian had suffered. “He’s a grown man now, with power—and he has Sam.”

Aidan looked at her. “The Slayer? He’s only usin’ her fer sex.”

“No, darling, you’re wrong. She’s freeing him from his past, the way I freed you.”

Aidan hugged her, hard. “I’m afraid for him.”

“I know.”

“I willna let him suffer again. This time, I will find him, free him an’ kill the bastard monk.” He pulled abruptly away, blue eyes ablaze now.

Brie just looked at him, her heart slamming.

His eyes widened. “What is it? What secret do ye have?”

She opened up her mind completely to his.

“Moray is back?” he cried. And Aidan, the Wolf of Awe, turned white.

“HE’S PASSED OUT again,” the guard said, laughing.

Ian lay very still, naked on the cement floor, swimming in pain, not moving. He’d been counting the minutes until his tormentors would return.

This time, he was going to have his revenge.

This time, he was going to destroy Carlisle.

He was careful not to smile as he lay on his stomach as they approached, his eyes closed. He’d endured their torture for one reason only: revenge.

He didn’t know if hours had gone by since Sam had left, or days. They’d beaten him several times, and not just with their fists. He’d heard them talking. They had orders to keep him weak and helpless but alive. The monk had gone back to Carlisle in the sixteenth century. After the last beating, there had been antibiotics and a blood transfusion. He recalled a doctor attending him, setting broken bones and fractures.

It had been a mistake to bring a doctor to him. It had been a mistake to give him blood and meds. His body felt broken. His body was broken. But his mind wasn’t broken, not this time. The more blood they replaced, the longer he was on medication, the stronger he was inside, where it counted.

He had never been as clear as to what he had to do.

He lived with so much rage.

And the fear was somehow gone.

He didn’t know why the fear he’d lived with all of his life had vanished. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t a nine-year-old boy anymore. But he had drifted in and out of his past, out of the years of captivity, during the beatings and when the doctor had come. Sam had been with him through it all, too.

It was as if she refused to leave his side. Even when they were torturing him, he’d been aware of her. He knew she’d left—she was going to defy him, find the page and trade it for him—but it felt as if she was beside him. When the pain was at its worst, he had reached for her and found real comfort.

He had tried once or twice to use his visual telepathy to find her, but he’d been too weak, too drugged to do so. He tried now, but only saw her face, haggard with concern. He knew it was his imagination.

Fearless Sam Rose…who was so worried about him…who loved him.

He knew he couldn’t have heard her correctly. In the past hours—or days—he’d thought about her declaration again and again, stunned by it. She couldn’t love a man like him. He was defiled and defective, the son of a Master who would never be a Master, a near-immortal who used his powers to steal art, not help others. Worse, he’d been a coward for most of his life.

He’d heard her incorrectly. But did it matter?