Born of Fire (26 page)

Her stomach hit the ground at his dry tone. “What?”

A tic worked in his jaw. “You know who my father was, Shahara. What he was. Did you really think he’d only sold my sister?”

For a moment she couldn’t breathe as those words slammed into her. Honestly, it had never crossed her mind that his father would have been
that
cold.

Poor Syn.

She placed her hand to his cheek. “Did Digger know?”

He shook his head. “We didn’t tell him. There was nothing he could do. Had he tried to stop him, my father would have killed him for it.”

Tears stung her eyes as she realized the true horror of his past. One that made a mockery of hers. Placing her hand over his arm where the tattoo was, she leaned her head against his chest and hugged him close. “I’m so sorry.”

Syn was stunned by her hug. Most of all, he was shocked by the sincerity of her tone. His body erupted with heat. “I’ve never told a single soul about any of that. Only Talia ever knew.” And he had no idea why he’d shared it with her.

Maybe because she’d been through it herself. She knew, like him, that they’d done nothing to cause it. Some people were just cruel shits who preyed on others for no other reason than the fact that they could inflict pain.

In the end, he was grateful that, unlike his father, he’d never understood how people could be that way, nor had he ever found joy in hurting someone else.

Closing his eyes, he held her against his chest and let
the sweet scent of her hair soothe him. “What about you? What did you do to your attacker?”

“Killed him.” She looked up at him. “Guess that means I’m nobody’s bitch either.”

He gave her a half smile. “Guess so.”

Shahara listened to the strong beat of his heart under her ear. This was the first time since Gaelin that she’d allowed a man to hold her.

And it felt really good.

But there was still a part of her scared of what he might do. A part of her that waited for him to change into a monster.

“How did you do it?” she asked, trying to distract herself from that thought.

He frowned. “Do what?”

“Learn to trust and be intimate with someone after that happened to you?”

“Who says I did?”

She frowned. “You were married. I just assumed you trusted her.”

“And I told her nothing of my past. I knew she couldn’t handle it and I was right. She was married to a character I created and not the person I was or am. She thought I was the orphaned son of a respected businessman who was living on a trust fund and that I’d had a bland, boring childhood.” He sighed. “It was the childhood I’d wanted to have. Totally fabricated so that other people wouldn’t know the truth of me.”

“But, you were with her. I can’t stand to be touched. The thought of sex still terrifies me even though I know it’s not supposed to be violent or painful. I just can’t bring myself to go there with another person.”

His features softened. “I think it was different because I wasn’t attacked by a woman . . . at least not until
you. I never really associated the two and honestly, I can’t stand to be touched by a man either. Not even casually to shake hands. It makes my skin crawl. And like you said, it doesn’t hurt when you’re with someone you want to be with. It’s actually extremely pleasant.”

Syn stared into her trusting face and wanted to show her what he meant, but she wasn’t ready for that. Honestly, it’d taken him years before he’d learned to enjoy sex himself. For the longest time, he’d viewed it as a tool. An act to be bartered for something else.

Then Mara had come along and for the first time he’d been able to fully enjoy himself. He’d found pleasure by sharing himself with her and making sure she never left his bed without multiple orgasms.

Until he’d learned about her adultery. That had shattered him worse than anything.

But he didn’t want to think about that. It was a long time ago . . . and yet it still pricked him soul deep whenever he thought about it. Why hadn’t he been good enough for her? Where had he been lacking that she needed to find another man to satisfy her?

Wanting to distract himself from that, he leaned his head back against the wall. “Why don’t you tell me a story to kill time?”

She scowled. “What?”

“Caillen said that you used to make up stories to tell to him at bedtime. He said you were best at it.”

Shahara gave a light laugh, remembering how many stories Caillen used to demand from her.

Please, Shay, make it a funny one!

She missed those days of her little brother making shadow puppets on the wall to illustrate her tales.

“It’s been a long time since I even thought about any. I don’t think I can do it anymore.”

“Why did you stop?”

She shrugged. “After my father died, there were no more stories to tell. They just seemed too trivial to bother with while I had bigger concerns like feeding three hungry siblings.”

He reached up with one hand. She tensed, half expecting him to touch her. Instead he paused momentarily, then scratched his chin. He returned it to rest on his knee. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I know. It’s just hard.”

Suddenly, his hand was on her cheek, brushing a stray curl away. “Are you scared of me?”

“Yes,” she answered honestly.

His blaster appeared in her hands. She grimaced at him. “What’s this for?”

“If I hurt you, you can kill me.”

She scoffed. “This is stupid.” She tried to return it to him.

He pushed it back into her hands. His gaze locked with hers and it held her transfixed. For once there was no mockery in his eyes, nor did they appear quite so glacial. “Fear is never stupid.”

“That’s not what you said earlier.”

He laughed and she marveled at the rich sound echoing around her. “Well, I had to goad you in here for your own sake. Besides, it worked.”

Shahara set his blaster by her foot and relaxed, allowing him to continue to brush her hair back from her face. Chills spread over her and she thought about his strength. Since all this began, he’d been unbelievably courageous.

Just what did it take to scare him? “What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” She was skeptical over that. “Surely something has to scare you.”

Syn licked his dry lips as his gaze trailed over her breasts and down to the legs she’d crossed in front of her. The way she sat, her thighs were open, inviting his hand to touch the most intimate part of her body.

He felt himself harden to the point of pain. What he wouldn’t give to trail his fingers over her breasts, her tight stomach and plunge them straight into . . .

Damn it, boy, get your head in the game.
If he didn’t stop this, he’d burst his seams.

Clearing his throat, he compromised by trailing his fingers over her soft, parted lips. “The only thing left that I haven’t faced is death and, after all I’ve been through, it would probably be a relief. So no, there’s honestly nothing left that scares me.”

Shahara thought about that while her body turned liquid in his arms.

What would it feel like to fear nothing? Her multitudinous fears ate at her constantly.

“Tell
me
a story, Syn. Tell me how a ten-year-old child survives alone in a world like ours.”

His body turned rigid and his hand stopped moving. “That’s an old story that’s best forgotten.”

Suddenly she knew what made him afraid. “You lied to me. You are afraid. You’re afraid of letting anyone close to you, aren’t you?”

“That’s ridiculous. I have plenty of people who are close to me.”

“Name me one person you confide in. One person who knows all about you.”

Silence answered her.

“Well?”

“Nykyrian.”

She shook her head. “No. You just told me something he doesn’t know about you. How many other things have you kept from him?”

Syn dropped his gaze to the ground as he realized the truth. “You’re right. As a rule, I don’t let people get too close to me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because when they look at me, they don’t see me. They only see my father’s son.”

Shahara had to strain to hear those words. Even in the dim light she could see the torment in his eyes. “I don’t hold you accountable for your father’s crimes. And I want to know
you
. I want to know why you, who have more reason than anyone I have ever met, have never turned into the animal your father was.”

He offered her a quirky grin. “I could have sworn you accused me of that.”

“Well, I say a lot of things I don’t mean and you’re trying to change the subject.”

“All right, fine,” he said, his eyes turning dull. “You want to hear a story, then a story you shall have.”

Swallowing hard, he turned his gaze up to the ceiling. “There was once a little boy who was born on a cold rainy day to parents who’d learned to hate each other. He was told that his mother had been a good girl who’d fallen in love with a bad boy who ruined her. But the truth was, she was every bit as heartless.”

His deadpan voice tore through her and she noted the way he omitted referring to them as his parents. It was as if he recited a book he’d once read, or talked about a stranger.

“One day, the mother tried to kill the baby and the father beat her so bad, she took off.”

Shahara froze as she remembered what Digger had said to her. “How do you know that?”

“My father rammed it down my throat every time he got angry at me. ‘You worthless bastard. I should have let your mother drown you, instead of saving you.’ ”

His voice was still hollow, but she knew he had to feel the bite of that. “You hate your mother, don’t you?”

He looked down at her and sighed. “I don’t know her well enough to hate her. The only memory I have of her is when she threw me out the door and threatened to call the enforcers on me if I ever darkened her threshold again.”

She wanted to weep over his mother’s cruelty. “So what happened after your father was executed?”

He took a deep breath. “You know the answer. I was sent to prison.”

“I still don’t see how they could have done that to you. Couldn’t they tell that you were different?”

He shook his head. “The child wasn’t all that different from its father in those days. All he knew was violence. How to take pain and how to give it. The boy was angry and bitter, and he lashed out at anyone dumb enough to get in his way. Believe me. That little bastard took down three grown pedophiles without even flinching. He cut their throats and stabbed them until they were dead at his feet. He was so violent and cold in their execution that none of the other prisoners would even look at him after that.”

No easy feat and it said a lot for what he’d done.

But it didn’t change the fact that Syn wasn’t cold-blooded or cruel. She knew better.

As Digger had said, he’d only attacked them after they’d brutalized him.

“The boy didn’t listen to anyone. Not even the guards, and since the beatings didn’t curb the boy’s mouthy comebacks, they started locking him up in solitary. One day they made the mistake of choosing a cell with an electronic lock. The boy had been trained well and in no time, he had it deactivated and was out of there.”

“It must have been so hard on your own.”

He shrugged. “It could have been worse.”

“Worse?” she asked in disbelief. “You slept under Dumpsters.”

“Digger told you that, eh?”

She nodded.

“Well, I could have still been in prison being raped and beaten, so trust me. The Dumpsters weren’t so bad.”

How could he be so accepting? How could he not hate his mother for turning him out?

To this day, a part of her despised her father for his neglect and shortsightedness and he’d never put her through anything like Syn had suffered.

“So how did you end up here?”

“I stowed aboard the first ship I could find with an open hatch.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I guess I should have checked its log first to see where it was headed. Not that it mattered. This is where I’d lived with my father so I wasn’t used to anything better.”

Shahara leaned against his knee so that she could better see his face. “When did you meet Mother Anne?”

“Who’s telling this story?”

“Sorry. You are.”

“All right,” he said, leaning his head back against the wall again. “Once the child arrived, he realized
that survival wasn’t going to be easy on his own. But the boy had enough of his father in him to get what he needed.”

“You stole?”

“Everything that wasn’t welded down. The child didn’t care who he stole from so long as he got away. And one day, the boy made the mistake of lifting the wallet of a man who could outrun him.”

“He caught you?”

“No, just as he was about to seize the boy, the boy dodged into a vacant building, ran through it and came out in the spaceport. The boy dodged around machines and debris until he found a tunnel that led to the entrance of the catacombs.”

“The man didn’t find you?”

“No,” he said, switching pronouns. “I wandered around down here for hours until I realized that one, it was a tomb, and two, the man wasn’t coming in after me. After sleeping here a few nights, it dawned on me that no one ever came here. It was just me and the dead.”

“So you made this your home?”

“What can I say?” He flashed his dimple at her. “It was the cleanest, safest home I’d ever had.”

She shuddered at the thought. “You still haven’t told me how you met Mother Anne.”

He reached out and fingered her cheek, his warm fingers a stark contrast to the icy air. She closed her eyes, savoring his touch, his smell.

“One day one of the priestesses died and they brought her down here. I stayed hidden until they left and, after I’d fallen asleep, Mother Anne and Mother Omera came back to conduct Final Rites.”

She opened her eyes. “They found you?”

He nodded. “Their kindness changed my life. They
took me into their private chambers and kept me bathed and fed. It was the first time in my life I had somewhere safe to stay, where no one tried to hurt me.”

She winced at the thought.

He moved his hand over to her neck where he brushed the backs of his fingers against her flesh, doing wicked little things to her body. Again the needful throb started.