I sucked in a breath as yet another déjà vu moment knocked on my mind. Somehow, even though our beginning stories were different, we were so similar.
I’d found a kindred ally in this girl.
Pity she still believed I was delusional when she could potentially be a friend. If only she listened instead of being so blind, I could find another avenue of healing.
“I was kidnapped in Mexico.” Her voice turned harsh with hate. “I was branded, repurposed, and sold.”
Tears warmed my eyes, knowing she’d suffered the same fate.
She knew what it was like to be washed and dressed by men who only cared about your health because it dictated how much they could get for your body.
It didn’t matter frustration steadily grew at her incorrect assumptions about Elder and me; I grieved for her just like I grieved for me. “I’m so sorry.”
Tess didn’t acknowledge my commiseration. Instead, she sat taller with a pride glinting in her gaze. “I was sold, and for a few months I was tormented by the man who took me.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear anymore. To listen to the mirror image of my tale of rapes and silent screams. Of starvation and broken bones. “You don’t have to say anymore. I understand.”
I dared glance up.
Her gaze softened to melted butter with a knife of pain—not for herself but for me. “You do understand, and that makes me so sad. That’s why it kills me to hear you say you love the bastard who did such things to you.” Tess slouched. “How long were you…”
I was glad she didn’t finish that sentence. That she didn’t ask how long I’d put up with having someone dominate and control my every twitch and thought. “Two years. But the man who kept me isn’t the man I’m in love—”
“Yet you manhandled Suzette with a spirit that isn’t broken.” She laughed under her breath, disregarding my need to clarify. “I’m glad Q didn’t find you before he met me…who knows what might’ve happened.”
I frowned, side-tracked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was like you. I didn’t let them break me.” She shook her head, snorting depreciatively. “However, unlike you, I wasn’t in slavery for two years. I’m the one who must say sorry. You’re far stronger than I am, even if you do believe you’re in love—”
“You keep misunderstanding me. I am in love with Elder, and he’s in love with me, but he’s not the man who bought me.”
She pursed her lips. “He really did a number on you, didn’t he? Just because he might’ve changed and grown to treat you fondly throughout your imprisonment, doesn’t mean he isn’t still the same man who bought you for pleasure.”
Ugh, I can’t handle this woman.
Crossing my arms, I fought the urge to cuff her around the head and demand she actually listen instead of regurgitating pamphlet information on a rescued slave’s mental health.
“You don’t understand what I’m saying.”
Instead of matching my frustration with her own, she gave me a sympathetic smile. “Look, I’ll be the first to admit I enjoyed some parts of those few months. The circumstances my master put me in…well, some were wanted while others were not.”
“Excuse me?” What sort of hypocrisy had I been dragged into? “So you can say you actually enjoyed being tortured, yet I can’t say I’m in love with the man who—”
Tess reached out and took my balled hands. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. That was super insensitive. I’m only trying to show you how nothing you tell me will be judged. I understand if you’re in love with him. I get that. Truly, I do. I also understand two years is a very long time, and you’re bound to have found some slivers of acceptability—enough so that your mind might warp what was normal behaviour and what wasn’t.”
She squeezed my fingers. “You’re not alone. Not by a long shot. That’s all I’m trying to say.”
“I know I’m not alone because Elder made sure I wasn’t. He was the first to show me how love should be.”
She nodded quickly, accepting what I said but still believing Elder was Alrik and not two separate people. How much longer would I have to repeat myself? Elder didn’t deserve to be thought of as a rapist. He wasn’t. He was my guardian angel. My genie. My best-friend.
Tess sighed heavily, almost as if she didn’t want to admit something. “Look, there’s something about you I find familiar, and I think it’s because I see myself in you. Because of that, I need you to hear me when I say I’m here for you—we all are. But returning to your normal life—going back to family and friends—will be so much harder if you keep believing you’re in love with your past owner. I understand because I was sold to a man most would call a monster. I stood up to him like you stood up to me today. I told him I would never call him master. I spat at him. Ran away from him. Never, ever bowed to him.”