Return of the Assassin (All the King's Men) (28 page)

"Ssshh." Malek's hold tightened.

The world fell away in his arms. Her fears quieted. These were the consequences of his love…knowing he was there to catch her, hold her, kiss away her tears if need-be. Through his touch, she felt his commitment to her. Only a day ago, Malek had been distant, but now he embraced his station as her mate and let go of his past. And he was stronger for her because of it.

There was a lesson to be learned from him. Maybe it was time she learned it and did for him what he had done for her…and reveal her past. All of it.

She pushed back, wiped her face, took a deep breath, and kissed him. "There's more," she said.

His arms loosened as if he instinctively knew she needed to stand on her own in that moment. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I know, but it's hard. I've never told anyone this." She suspected Micah knew most of what had happened, but him seeing her thoughts wasn't the same as her consciously making the decision to talk about them.

"What about Trevor. You two seem close."

She shook her head. "Trevor is a longtime family friend, but he only knows some of what happened. I never told him everything."

"Why not?"

"I don't know." She dropped her gaze. "Like you, maybe I thought that by not talking about the past, it would go away. Just disappear on its own."

"That bad?" Malek's hand skimmed up and down her hip, soothing her.

"Yes."

He stroked her wrist, down to her hand, and then lifted his hand to her face and smoothed his fingers over her brow. "Take your time. When you're ready, I'm here."

She smiled and blinked heavily as his fingers caressed her face again and again, so gentle and loving. His thumb arced around her eye as he tenderly cupped her cheek.

Finally, she opened her eyes and looked at him. "I was mated before, too, as you know."

"Yes." His eyes smiled compassionately.

"His name was Armand, and as I said at AKM, he was half-Dacian."

Malek's fingers curved and tightened their hold on her. Understandable. All males had a soft spot when it came to hearing about other males their mates had been with.

"He was cruel, ruthless…abusive."

A growl rumbled from Malek's chest.

She shushed him, placing her fingers over his lips. "It's okay. I'm okay. At least, now I am."

He grabbed her hand and pressed her fingers more firmly to his lips, kissing them. He drew the tips into his mouth, and she smiled. Malek really was a gem, a diamond that had only needed polishing a couple of days ago.

"I met him in 1938," she said. "My parents were hosting some kind of party. We lived in Boston at the time. He was a guest. He asked me to dance. I didn't want to, but I didn't want to be rude, either. Within minutes, I knew something was wrong. At the end of the party, he stayed behind, and I remember that he wouldn't let me leave the room. 'She's mine, now,' he told my parents. Everything happened so fast after that. I wasn't even allowed to pack. He grabbed my hand, pulled me out the door against the protests of my family, stuffed me in his car, and drove me away. I was too stunned to even cry.

"As soon as he got me home, he raped me, but it wasn't seen as rape since he was my mate. But I know what I know, and what he did to me was rape."

Malek threw off the covers and practically leaped from the bed. "I'll kill him!" He paced to the window, hands on his hips, his naked, too-thin form silhouetted against the backdrop of the city. As she sat up, she noted that they really needed to get him back on a blood-healthy, calorie-rich diet. Until he began feeding in earnest again, on both food and blood, he would be weakened and slow to heal, which the still unhealed cut on his cheek and bite on the front of his throat proved.

"He's already dead." She scooted to the edge of the bed and let her legs hang off the side.

Malek turned around and looked at her as if he sensed what she was about to say. His shadowed gaze grew intense with concern.

She folded her hands in her lap and looked down. A moment later, he kneeled in front of her and placed his hands over hers.

With a sigh, she met his gaze. "I became pregnant," she said. Then she huffed ironically. "Imagine my horror. I was going to give birth to a quarter-Dacian young, the product of being raped by my own mate. I swear shit like this can't be made up." She quieted as she allowed the long-hidden memories to flow.

Malek squeezed her hands. "What happened?"

"He beat me for being terrified of what I was carrying inside me. He didn't even care that it was part of him. The fact that he had mated a non-Dacian sickened him to begin with, which was why he treated me the way he did. It didn't matter that he was merely half himself. He hated that he wasn't full-blooded. And lucky me, I was the one who received all his misdirected anger." She sneered with sarcasm. "The beating was so severe I almost lost the baby and died. But miraculously, we both survived." Her words were laced with irony and contempt. "That time, at least." She closed her eyes as what happened next entered her memories. "I couldn't go on living like that, being abused every day, verbally, mentally, and physically. At one time, I had been happy and full of life. Armand took all that from me. In less than six months, he stole every shred of hope from my soul. I was steeped in depression and ready to die when I made a decision to take back my life or die trying."

Malek remained silent, on his knees in front of her, rapt and attentive.

She offered him a wan smile. "I waited until he was asleep, rolled over, pulled the knife out from between the mattress and box springs that I had hidden there earlier, turned around, raised it…" She paused, seeing that day in vivid detail. She could still see the silver of Armand's eyes as they flashed open and he lunged for her. "Before I could stab his heart, he woke up. I didn't know about how males attached themselves to their mates during sleep, but I learned that day." She looked down. "He attacked me. Hit me so hard that I flew across the room and into the dresser, dropping the knife. He was on me so fast. He tore off my clothes, threw me down, and practically ripped me open as he took me." She stifled a sob, remembering the pain. "Sex was power to him. It was how he controlled me. 'Bitch! You little bitch! You think you can kill me?' he said. He took me with such force that my body slid across the floor with each thrust. And in a way, that was what saved my life, because I knew he was going to kill me after he took me one last time.

"As I cried out, screamed for help, and struggled to get away, my hand smacked down on the handle of the knife. Desperate, I grabbed it and stabbed him in the back of the shoulder. He pulled back, and I saw my chance to escape. I scampered backward, kicking at him as he tried to grab my feet. I stood up, tried to run, but he was already on his feet and pulled me back by my hair." She lifted her hand to her hair. "It was longer then." She half shrugged. "He tossed me across the room, against the armoire. It shattered and I fell backward and slammed into the wall. He stalked toward me, pulled the knife out of his shoulder, held it in front of him. I knew I was dead. I tried to crawl away, but there was nowhere to go. I was trapped. That's when I saw his handgun out of the corner of my eye. In hysterics, I grabbed it. I'd never touched a gun before that day. Just as he reached me and lifted the knife, I swung the gun around and pulled the trigger." She closed her eyes and saw the shower of blood. "The bullet went through his mouth and into his skull. He died instantly, just as he fell forward and the knife plunged into my belly." She raised her palms to her stomach.

Malek gently lifted her hands away, kissed her knuckles, and then bent forward to kiss her stomach. Tears balanced on the rims of his eyes when he looked back up at her. His tender show of affection both touched and soothed her.

"For a long time, I just laid there, bleeding, splattered with his blood. I knew the baby was dead, but I was glad. Isn't that horrid of me?" She searched his gaze. "I was actually happy I'd lost the baby, because I didn't want any part of him inside me." She swallowed a quiet sob. "It wasn't until later, after the doctors removed the fetus, that I realized the attack had rendered me barren." She took a deep breath, blew it out. "How's that for irony? I was happy to be rid of his unborn child, and then I found out that not only had I lost his baby, but also the ability to have a baby altogether." She wiped her fingers over her cheeks. "I guess that was God's way of punishing me for being glad the baby was killed."

Malek took her face in his hands and rose up on his knees. "No. Don't think like that, Gina." He shook his head. "God would never punish you for something like that. You'd been through a lot. You were justified to feel the way you did. You did nothing wrong, and you didn't bring this on yourself. Do you understand?"

She hadn't known how badly she needed to hear someone tell her that until just now. Malek absolved her of guilt and lifted the burden she had carried for far too long, and her love for him blossomed more deeply because of it.

"I laid there for so long, Malek." She pulled his hands from her cheeks and threaded their fingers together. "I was in shock, battered, in so much pain. But then my survival instinct kicked in, along with the reality that I was free. I actually started laughing. It hurt like hell, but I couldn't stop. I was almost manic with laughter, because I was finally free. I was with Armand for only six months, but those months felt like decades."

"I know the feeling."

She smiled. "Yes, you do, don't you?"

He kissed her knuckles again.

She took a deep breath, ready to tell the rest of her story. "After realizing I was free, I pulled out the knife, kicked him off me, crawled out of the rubble to the phone—we were one of the privileged families who had a phone at the time—and called my parents. They contacted the authorities." Her gaze dropped with guilt. "I lied to everyone but my brother Gabe. I didn't tell them I had intended to kill him. I told them he had attacked me in my sleep. It was easy enough to convince everyone that he was the one trying to kill me. I was bloodied, bruised, stabbed, and had clearly been sexually assaulted. Examination showed my flesh had been torn and all evidence supported my claim. But I knew if I told them the truth, I would be punished for murder, because that had been my intention. I had wanted to kill him, and I hadn't cared about the consequences. The fact that he fought back and beat me so badly is the only reason I wasn't punished. Armand's death went down as self-defense, and I was found not guilty. I really was
free." She quieted and kept her gaze on Malek's hands, which covered hers once more on her lap. "That was the day I became an assassin, if I'm being honest. It started that day."

After a moment of silence, Malek squeezed her hand. "Your secret's safe with me." He paused. "If you ask me, the bastard deserved everything he got. If you hadn't killed him, I would hunt him down now and do the deed myself."

She glanced at him and smiled. "I know you would. And that's one reason why I love you so damn much."

Malek was everything a true mate should be. Loving, warm, and most of all, protective. With each passing hour, he continued to show her how wrong she had been to think he was like Armand.

She sighed and smiled. "It felt good to finally tell that to someone."

He rose to his feet and bent over her, nose-to-nose, hands on either side of her hips on the bed. "Thank you for telling
me
." His lips met hers and held, unmoving, connecting them to each other.

After a long, easy moment, he broke away, lifted her feet off the floor, and rotated her legs around onto the bed. "Let me join you."

She rolled into the center of the mattress only to be pulled back against him a moment later as he pressed behind her.

His strong arms, albeit thinner than they had been a month ago, encircled her.

"You need to eat, Malek."

"Later." He nuzzled the back of her neck. "Right now I just want to hold you." His lips traced side to side at the top of her spine, sending a chill through her body.

"That feels nice." Malek was the antithesis to everything Armand had been. Kind, loving, gentle, attentive, compassionate, patient, giving…

"
You
feel nice."

…complimentary.

His lips explored the back of her neck and shoulder, peppered soft kisses up, down, and all over. Minutes passed, his affections increased, and his hands worked themselves under her top as he nipped the side of her neck. "I love how brave you are. So strong." His hands skimmed her everywhere. "You're such a warrior, and God that's a turn-on."

"You say the sweetest things."

A low rumble that sounded like it might have been a chuckle under different circumstances vibrated into her back. "You have no idea."

"Oh?"

He snuggled closer and his lips did naughty things to her skin. "Huh-uh."

"Care to fill me in?"

He shook his head. "Later." The fingers of one hand tickled a heated path to one breast, while his other hand dove beneath the elastic waist of her pants.

She sensed that he wanted to mark his territory. Even though Armand was dead, Gina had a feeling that talking about him had fired up Malek's need to let any competition for her affection know he had already staked his flag in her heart. Mated males were like feral beasts. Once they took a mate, all others got the message loud and clear: Hands off! They didn't take kindly to the thought of other males getting too close, even if the male in question was from the past.