Page 44 of The Rust in Her Hair

The urge sits right there at the ends of my arms, and I fist the flannel tighter and hold still until it passes.

Then Owen straightens, gives me a small nod, and steps out.

The door clicks shut, and my legs give out.

I slide down the wall to the floor and pull my knees up to my chest.

I don't understand any of this.

Not what's happening to me, not what my body is doing, reaching and slicking and burning for men I don’t even know while the bruises are still fresh on my wrists. It's too much and none of it makes sense and I can't make it stop.

The sob I've been swallowing since the doorway finally tears loose.

My wrists throb. The ache low in my body throbs along with them. Everything he did to me is still there on my skin, and now there's this new horror stacked on top of it, this thing my body keeps doing, reaching and reaching for three strangers when it should be curled up somewhere just trying to survive.

And on top of all this, I’m sure Crispin is out there looking for me.

And he’ll probably find me.

I press both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. I don't know where I go from here, and I don't know how to make my body stop.

The shower runs on behind me, and steam creeps out over the top of the curtain and curls through the small room, settling damp on my skin and beading in my hair. It softens the edges of everything. I cry into my palms as quietly as I can, swallowing every sound before it can carry through the door, shoulders jerking with the effort of holding it in.

I fold down over my knees on the cold tile and let the crushing sadness drag me under.

Room for One More

Nico

The pipes knock once in the walls, and then the shower kicks on down the hall.

I stand in the middle of the living room, staring at where Owen led Lyra. I can't make myself sit down.

Every muscle in me is drawn tight, humming with the need to go out to the truck, drive to wherever she came from, and put my hands on the bastard who did this to her.

I breathe through it, trying to shut the urge down.

There's no need to do anything stupid, I tell myself. This girl isn't mine to protect. She has her own family to make it right.

But my body won't hear it. My feet keep drifting a half step toward that hallway before I catch them. What the fuck?

Stop it, I command myself, forcing my feet to plant on the carpet.

Across the room, Adrian hasn't moved off the wall. His arms are crossed and his jaw is set hard. A muscle keeps jumping under his left ear. The alpha is staring at the mouth of the hallway where Owen took her, his face especially pale.

I’m sure he’s feeling the same thing I am right now. It’s just hitting him harder because Adrian feels everything so much deeper.

He grew up knowing what it was like to be at someone else’s mercy. It left him gentle where the rest of us went hard. He’s my tender-hearted mate. The one who pulls over for every damn stray dog, and worries when a kid is crying in the checkout line.

It’s one of the things I love the most about him.

"Adrian,” I say. "You okay?"

He slowly turns to look at me. "No."

He pushes off the wall and crosses to me, closer than he needs to stand. He cuts a look toward the hall before saying anything, checking the water's still running.

"When I scented her," he whispers. "In the library, before I even got a look at her face. Something in me locked onto her."