Chapter 23

 

Getting back up the tree was harder than getting down, but they made it. If it seemed strange that Belinda was still naked and Beast was only wearing underpants, then neither of them noticed. All Beast could see was the evidence of Belinda’s ordeal.

He made her sit with her back to the tree while he cleaned her wounds using water from a bottle she’d filled and his damp shirt.

“This cut on your hip is deeper than I thought it was,” he told her as he gently cleaned the wound.

He hated that the guard had left a mark on her. Hated that she was in pain. Hated that he hadn’t been able to save her before the asshole had laid a hand on her. All those years training to wipe out bastards like the guard and he hadn’t even been there when it mattered.

A small hand wrapped around his wrist. “Stop it,” she whispered. “You saved me. That’s all that matters. You. Saved. Me.”

“Baby,” he said, “I didn’t save you fast enough. He should never have gotten his hands on you.”

“You were out of it. You did everything you could.”

He couldn’t stop himself—he slowly closed the gap between them and gently pressed a kiss to her sore lips. “Never again, Belinda. I can’t let anything bad happen to you ever again.”

Her smile was shaky as her eyes filled with tears. “Ever is a long time, John. I don’t think it will take that long to get out of the jungle.”

“I’m thinking you need someone to watch over you when you’re out of the jungle, too. You seem to attract trouble.” It was a poor attempt to lighten the mood.

She sucked in a breath. “Are you saying I’m the reason that man tried to rape me?”

What? “Hell no.” He gently touched her chin, angling her face up. He wanted her to look him in the eye. “No. Do you hear me? No. You didn’t ask to be kidnapped. You didn’t ask to have some asshole try to rape you. This is on them. Not you. They’re evil bastards who think they have a right to do whatever the hell they want. If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. This is not on you. Don’t even think that. Got me?”

“I get you.” Tears filled her eyes and spilled out to roll down her cheeks.

Beast gently brushed them away with his thumbs. “I hate that I wasn’t there to stop this from happening.”

“I do too,” she said as more tears fell. “But it isn’t your fault any more than it’s mine.”

He barked out a mirthless laugh. “That’s damn hard to swallow, isn’t it?”

She gave him a woeful nod.

“Come here,” he said gruffly as he sat beside her and pulled her into his lap.

She clung to him as she sobbed, each sound shattering a little more of his heart. He cooed nonsense to her and stroked her arms, back and hair. He wanted to take away every single mark on her body. He wanted to wipe it clean and make it easier for her to get past what had happened.

He knew the cuts and bruises would eventually fade, but the scars inside would be there forever. They never healed. He knew this from experience. He also knew that you could live around them. You could use the internal scar tissue to make you stronger. You could become better knowing you were a survivor. Not a victim. A survivor. He could teach her that.

“It gets better, baby. Trust me, you’ll get past this.”

“I can still feel his hands on me,” she said through tears. “I feel h-his, h-his part pressing against my backside. He was so close when you shot him. A second more and he would have been inside me and I would never have been clean. How do you clean deep inside, John? How is it possible? Why am I the one who feels dirty when he’s the one who was vile? It doesn’t make sense.”

Her words were lost in yet more tears. Beast held her close, as tight as possible. It wasn’t enough. All he could do was listen to her cry and clean her wounds. Care for her. But it wasn’t enough to wipe the slate clean for her. He wished there was something else he could give her. But there was nothing. Or… Maybe…

He swallowed hard, breaking out into a sweat at the thought. Could he give her that piece of himself to help her feel better? Damn, he was shaking at the thought of sharing his secret. Even though he’d learned the hard way that the past had no power over him, he still broke out in a sweat. He’d chosen to be a survivor. The shame of what had been done to him wasn’t his shame. That was on the abuser. Not him.

“You’ll get past this,” he said. “You’ll use it to make you stronger.”

“How?” She sounded hopeless, and it stripped the last of his hesitancy.

“Because I got past it,” he said hoarsely. “That’s how I know.”

She stilled in his arms as his words penetrated. Slowly, she looked up at him, and Beast steeled himself. Would he see disgust in her eyes? Pity? He pushed the thoughts out of his mind. They had no place in his head. What she felt was on her. Her pity, or disgust, or judgment didn’t affect him. He chose who he was and how he dealt with his past.

“The woman,” she said softly, startling him. “She hurt you. The liar. The one who acted in front of other people but hurt you in private. She was your foster mother, right?”

His mouth opened and shut a few times as his mind raced. Had she investigated him? No, she hadn’t had time. Plus, he was sure there was nothing on record anywhere about what had happened.

“How do you know?” He hated that he sounded vulnerable. He wasn’t vulnerable. He was strong. He’d chosen to be strong when he was a teenager, and it hadn’t changed since.

She reached up and stroked his cheek. “You were delirious last night. You said stuff.”

Beast swallowed hard. It didn’t mean anything. This secret wasn’t his shame. It was his mantra. He lived by it.

“Yeah, it was a foster mother. She sexually and physically abused me. The authorities loved her because she acted like the perfect, caring parent to their faces. But when they weren’t looking, living with her was hell.” He recited his story in a monotone, watching her face for reaction.

“That’s why you ran away and lived on the street.” The sadness in her eyes made him ache.

“I did talk a lot last night, didn’t I? Yeah, that’s why I lived on the street.”

“You were only a child.”

The way she said it melted his heart. She felt for him. She was aching for the child he’d once been. It was an astonishing revelation. No one had ever hurt for him. Never felt for him.

“I’m not a kid now, baby. That’s why I’m telling you this. You’ll get past what that evil asshole did to you. You’ll get past being kidnapped. You’ll become stronger. You’ll thrive. This won’t stop you, because you’re a survivor.”

Her smile was everything. It warmed him like the sun. “Like you. You’re a survivor. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever met.”

Damn, she was stealing his heart right out of his body. His throat tightened as emotion built to a crescendo inside of him. He had to lighten things before he burst. “Not with insects. With insects, I’m a wimp.”

“We never talk about that, remember?” Her eyes sparkled with more than tears.

He kept his eyes on her face as she leaned into him and pressed her lips to his. “Thank you for telling me. It helped.”

“Good,” he said as he held her close. “That’s good.”

And then they sat there, letting the sounds of the jungle wrap around them like a soothing blanket.

“We need to move soon,” Beast said. “The gunshots would have been heard for miles.”

“Five minutes,” she said. “Then we’ll go. I need five minutes.”

His arms tightened. She needed this. Time in his arms. Time wrapped in his protection. And he would give her as much of it as he was able. He suspected he’d always give her his protection. No matter where life outside of the rainforest took them, when Belinda called, he would drop everything and run to her. The knowledge settled something inside of him, and he relaxed against the tree.

He felt Belinda’s muscles ease and knew that she’d crashed from the adrenalin that had helped her fight. Exhaustion overwhelmed her bruised body and she slipped into sleep. Beast kissed the top of her hair and held her tight. In his arms. Where he suspected she was born to be.