Something felt sore in his chest—the same something he hadn’t even been aware existed before he woke up with her in his arms for the first time. He was starting to recognize his claim as an odd and not entirely pleasant mix of fierce, protective urges and something soft and vulnerable that belonged just to her.

“I still have the instincts, even if I fight against them. You don’t seem to understand how badly every fiber of my being wants to claim and possess you.”

To his surprise, her only reaction to his shameful admission was to put her head back down on his shoulder after kissing his skin.

“I will rip him apart for what he did to you. I don’t care if it’ll start a war.”

“I hope you will.”

Her softly spoken admission should have shocked him—she was so gentle and kind, and hearing her say that she wished for someone’s painful demise was rather out of character. However, all he felt was warm satisfaction from knowing that she would appreciate the revenge he’d take on her behalf.

They lay in silence for a time before she said, “Tell me about your mother.”

Kain turned his head to look at her in the soft light from the bedside lamps. Her eyes were open, but she seemed focused on the hand she kept stroking across his chest and stomach through his T-shirt.

He’d never really talked about her, or about what happened, with anyone besides Thomren. His memory of her was painful and bitter to both him and his brother, and his father could not take the mention of her. His father had once come across an old necklace of hers several years after her death, and had ripped apart several rooms in a fit of rage just from the sight of it.

But not a day went by that Kain didn’t think about her.

“She was beautiful. I remember her long black hair and caramel eyes. And she had very soft hands.

“She was in her mid-twenties when my father won her at the auction, and already married to a human man. Her daughter was about a year old. When I was born, she’d been with my father for four years, and not a day went by that she didn’t plead with him to let her return to her old life.

“She missed her husband and daughter desperately. My father thought that having me would help her accept a life by his side, but it didn’t. She had no interest in me, or my brother when he came along three years later. I remember her referring to us as devil spawn and the product of rape when my father asked her to take care of us.