“You don’t have to⁠—”

“No, I want to. I want to say it all.” She lifted her head, her nose red, cheeks blotchy and streaked with tears. She was so beautiful and so brave. And I just wanted to absorb her pain. I wished that I’d designed the Soul Token to take her pain away, instead of just feeding on it.

“They opened my door. They flicked the light switch … over and over, that clicking sound. It didn’t come on, but they somehow knew I was in there. They—” She broke off with another sob.

Fury threaded through my veins. She’d been a tiny child, and these bastards had wanted to hurt her. Had they succeeded? I was imagining all sorts of things men like that would like to do to a pretty little child.

If they had … they would regret it every day for their eternity once I got my hands on them.

“They came into the room. It was so dark I couldn’t see … but I could hear their shoes on the floor. So close to my bed. So close to where I was hiding.

“They would have found me, except another one yelled from downstairs, and suddenly they all rushed out. And the house was silent. And the dark …” She gasped. “The dark … I was … too scared to move … I stayed there, in the dark … until the police found me the next morning.”

“Jemma, I …” But there were no more words that could make this better for her. Years had gone by, and she was still affected by that night.

She swiped her fingers, smearing her tears over her face. Her bottom lip trembled. I wanted to kiss that tremble away. I wanted to hold her and never let her go. I wanted to stay in this form, by her side, and never let her be in the dark again.

“They said it was a retaliation. My dad, he was a public prosecutor … that’s a lawyer who makes cases against criminals who are on trial. He’d just won a high-profile case against some gang leader. And … the police thought it was some other gang members wanting to punish him …”

She leaned her head against my chest, and the desperate, wracking cries that came from her shook her whole body. I clenched my jaw and held her. It was all I could do.

When the shaking eased, I pressed a kiss to her hair, then swiped at my own cheeks, finding them wet. Was I crying, too?

No, it must have been her tears somehow getting onto my face, because devils didn’t cry …

“They found them—Mum and Dad, I mean—in the lake, the next morning. Joe had to … he came home from university to take care of me. They asked him to identify them. He’s never spoken to me about it, but … the expression on his face after …”