I never usually let them take hold. Never usually allowed that stupid kid inside me to make me suffer moral behaviour. I dabbled in human flesh because each time I’d trusted someone, they’d turned out to be a devil in disguise.

I happily bought and sold women because frankly, they deserved it.

I had no qualms about men being killed or bad things happening to the human race because we’d caused so, so much worse to other species. It was karma. Justified. Warranted.

Wiping my mouth, I struggled to remember what we spoke about before my trip down unwanted memory lane.

Ah, yes.

She’d guessed what I’d known since I was a boy. She’d been the trigger for my relapse.

Humans aren’t to be trusted.

You’re right, Eleanor Grace. And that is why I will never trust you.

It’d always turned out to be the ones closest to me that failed me the most. Therefore, I wouldn’t give her the opportunity.

Throwing her into that chimpanzee cage, allowing her to be oppressed and confined just like Ace the aging, disease-riddled ape had been before I’d rescued and euthanized him, had been one of the hardest things I’d ever fucking done.

It’d gone against my basic make-up as a man, but it’d also been necessary.

She was a threat.

To me.

To Skittles.

To my motherfucking heart.

It was time to leave.

Necessary to get the hell out of there, before I said or did something that went against every rule I’d followed since I found out that my mother had been using the animals I rescued as her own personal lab tests.

For years, I’d funded her experiments.

Stupidly handing over healthy, tamed animals that no one would miss.

Fuck!

My hands balled as I backed away from the cage. “Goodnight, Jinx. I assume you won’t sleep well.”

She shook her head, her gorgeous long hair licking over her arms and shoulders. She was once again regal and refined. “No. Don’t go. Not yet. I want to know. I need to understand. Please—”

I tutted under my breath. “There is nothing to understand. Don’t reduce yourself to begging. If you last one night with your dignity intact, then you will return to your villa. You will once again be given anything you desire. You will feel the sun on your face and the rain in your hair. You will sleep on softness and spend your days doing whatever you wish.” My tone turned black. “However, if you disobey me again. If you talk to me out of line. If you attempt to connect with me. If you continue to chase something that isn’t there to be chased, then this will be your new accommodations.”

Panic painted her cheeks, but she held her tongue from begging. Pushing off from the bars, she stood in the centre of the cage as regal and as noble as any priestess. Greek goddess, Egyptian sylph, or powerful enchantress, nothing compared to her.

Even in a simple robe, she was dressed in a gown of riches, dripping with magic that made me fight the constant urge to bow to her.

“Goodnight, El-Jinx.” I turned and stalked toward the door.

Her gentle voice tiptoed after me. “I understand your desire to protect animals from cruelty, Sully. I’m the same. I get that drive. I have the same bleeding heart to help. So I won’t curse you for locking me in a cage that some poor animal has probably died in. But…” Steel gilded with silver filled her tone. “I will never forgive you for doing exactly what others have done to the same souls you stand up for. Regardless of what you say, I am worthy of the same protection. I feel the same level of helplessness. I’m just as dependent on you as they are. And this is what you’re doing to me. This is how you’re treating me. That’s not justice. It’s hypocritical.”

I didn’t turn around.

I stepped from the villa that housed a hundred contraptions of persecution and locked the door on a goddess who spoke the truth.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I STOOD UPRIGHT, STRETCHING out the kinks in my entire body.

All night, I’d alternated between sitting and trying to sleep leaning against the bars, lying on my side curled into a tiny ball, or standing to alleviate the biting pain of the bars into my thighs.

The wire bottom was the worst part. It wasn’t the lack of space or claustrophobia; it was the constant fiery lashes of metal biting into the soles of my feet, my legs, my ribcage.

It made me pity animals whose homes included such torture. Mice that lived on wire. Rabbits that lived in hutches. The agony of just a single night drove my mind to jagged points, let alone being my permanent state of existence.

I’d slept intermittently—another bad night’s sleep compounding onto the previous few. I would’ve willingly traded sleeping under a bush to this monstrosity.

After Sully had gone, I’d resigned myself to the darkness, the silence, the strange fear that’d sprung through me when his eyes had gone blank with the past. His mask of indifference and callousness had dropped, revealing a man who carried tangled agony in his heart.

If I could’ve bent the bars to get to him, I would have. I would’ve crawled into his arms and dragged him back from whatever hell he relived. Maybe if I’d touched him, things might’ve worked out differently. But because I hadn’t, his walls reconstructed, his mask repositioned, and whatever connection that’d stealthily bloomed between us was shot with an arrow and left to die on the cage floor with me.

Standing on one leg, I did my best to give my left foot a rest from the wire. When the red welts faded a little from my skin, I gave my right foot a rest, balancing easily and training my mind to stay calm instead of chaotic. Occasionally, I stood on the tray Sully had placed inside with me, but the slippery surface was as equally tortuous as the wire.

I wanted out.

I’d never wanted anything more in my life.

But losing my mind wouldn’t make my release come any faster.

Instead, I watched the sunrise through the windows crowded with cages. I nibbled at the food and rationed the water so I wouldn’t have to use the bucket in the corner. As hours ticked past, I steadily lost my tenacity and became teary with exhaustion.

By afternoon, I’d reduced myself to pissing in the bucket and slouching against the bars in some broken marionette pose. At least such tiredness meant I was able to sleep, able to ignore the pain from the metal wire.

My eyes shot open at the scrape of the villa door opening.

I tried to scramble to my feet, but instead I slipped on the tray and crashed deeper into my discarded puppet pose.

Masculine footsteps paced methodically toward me as I turned to look over my shoulder and braced myself to see Sully.

After a night in this jail, my heart had hardened toward him. I had no tender hope where he was concerned, just smouldering anger. If he could lock me up and leave me here, then he didn’t deserve any understanding. I refused to beg for attention. I would never lower myself to his affection if this was what he was capable of.

I moaned as I clawed my way to my bruised feet.

A pair of green eyes met mine.

Not Sully.

Calvin.

He’s returned from wherever he flew off to.

His stare dropped from mine, skating over my body.

I gulped and rapidly retied the robe. The top had gaped, revealing a breast and the now no longer sunburned skin, thanks to Sully’s serum. No hint of redness existed, and the blisters on my hands had healed practically before my eyes.