Elena did not reply, but the awareness he felt from her enhanced.

“It was a lie.”

Her hand spasmed on his leg.

“I remember, nights and nights of hearing the noises,” he shared. “I remember, lying abed, listening, fear paralyzing me, my mind a turmoil, not understanding, but knowing those noises were not right. I remember, the night before it happened, Trajan screaming in the middle of the night. I remember, the day after he did that, we were moved from our chambers to ones far away from my mother and father in another area of the castle. I remember, lying awake then, not able to sleep for fear of it happening without me there, as if my closeness to her was some balm. So I remember getting out of bed so I could go to their room. I wanted her to know I was close. I only intended to open the door enough she could see me and know I was there. But I saw them.”

“You saw them…what?” she prompted when he stopped talking.

He looked to her then. “I saw my father raping my mother.”

She swayed back, then forward, her hand clutching his thigh.

“Cassius.”

“I was six.”

And then he saw what he’d feared he’d see.

The dread in her face that he so wanted to protect her from.

“Cassius,” she breathed in horror.

“I knew, even then, it was not an act of love between partners. The violence. It was obscene.”

She moved closer, taking her hand from his thigh to press it to his chest.

“That was why Trajan was screaming,” he explained. “He told me, later, in whispers, for we knew better than to talk about it openly. He’d had enough. He was older. Understood what was happening. He’d gone to save her. To stop it. Father forced him out and had us moved.”

“I hate that for him,” she said. “I hate that for you.”

“She saw me. In the door.”

“Oh goddess,” she breathed.

“He was in the act, forcing himself upon her, and her face was twisted in pain, but nothing like how she looked when she saw that I saw. That pain…” He blew out a breath. “Ellie, there is no word to describe the depths of that pain.”

Elena moved again, pressing herself to his side, wrapping her arm around his stomach.

“She was dead the next morning,” he declared.

“No.” This came out almost silently.

“Killed herself, drowned herself in her bath. Not because she couldn’t take it, because she did not want her sons to see her like that. Not again. And she had no control over it, nowhere to turn, no one who would help her. It would happen again and again and again, and we would know it did.”

He closed his eyes, opened them and continued speaking.