Page 88 of Taught By the Dragon
A tear slipped down her cheek, and Bronx wiped it away. “What’s wrong, love? Tell me.”
She sniffled. “I’m afraid if I tell you, then you’ll walk out that door.”
He cupped her cheek as he shook his head. “No. I can’t imagine you doing anything that bad.”
If Bronx was willing to give up everything for her, she owed him this truth. Taking a deep breath, she replied, “I had to do some bloody awful stuff inside the facility. At first, I was the experimental test subject, the one having things done to her. But in the last few years, they forced me to be the one doing stuff to others.”
He searched her gaze. “Tell me.”
Percy took a minute to memorize his face, his gray eyes, his firm jaw, and the way his hair had a few gray strands at the temples.
Yes, she loved this male, as scary as that notion was. And she might just lose him forever with what she said next.
Her dragon said softly,Don’t assume what he’ll say or do. Just tell him.
As if knowing she needed the quiet, Bronx merely waited in silence. Eventually, she spoke again. “They ran a bunch of fertility tests on me. Since I’d never conceived in all the years I’d been there, they wanted to see if changing things would get a different result.”
Memories threatened to rush forth, but she pushed them back. Staring into Bronx’s eyes gave her the strength to do it.
Eventually, she continued, “They wanted to start tests with me fucking dragons instead of humans. They’d captured older dragonmen—before, they had caught younger prisoners to better control them and their shifts for dragon’s blood—and put us together. One reluctantly did it, but only because they threatened his mate back home.”
The haunted look in his eyes, plus his voice murmuring apologies to both her and his mate, stayed with Percy to this day.
Shivering, she said, “But it didn’t work. They wanted a younger dragonman, one about my age, to see if it made a difference. However, the male—named Kit—refused. Eventually, they gave him something to make him catatonic. They’d, er, prepare his cock and then told me to fuck him.
“I said no. But then they administered something that felt like fire racing through my veins, day after day, until I finally said yes.” She swallowed. “The dragonman had no idea of anything, was unaware, and I had to climb on top and fuck him every day for weeks.”
Tears ran freely down her cheeks now, but she was too determined to finish this to even bother wiping them away. “Eventually, they stopped it, to move on to different test. But they’d made me like them—they turned me into a rapist.”
A sob broke free, and she tried to calm down. But it was as if a floodgate had been released. Sob after sob wracked her body, to the point she could barely breathe.
As soon as Bronx wrapped her in his arms, she burrowed into his chest, breathing in his comforting scent, absorbing his warmth. Because this might be the last time he ever held her, after hearing about this dark part of her past.
* * *
Bronx murmuredsoothing words to Percy as he stroked her hair and held her close. The more he learned, the more he wanted to hunt down all the fuckers who’d hurt her and avenge her.
But he knew that would only land him in jail and probably get him executed.
Besides, Percy needed him more. And the fact she thought sharing this excoriating part of her past would drive him away only made him angry and more determined than ever to give her the future she deserved.
Once she finally calmed down and merely hiccupped in his arms, he said, “You were forced into it, Percy. You arenothinglike those bastards, do you hear?”
“But—”
“No, there’s nobuthere. I imagine if you’d continued to refuse, they probably would’ve just kept torturing you and eventually killed you, right?”
“Probably. But—”
He squeezed her tighter against him. “You arenotlike them. You were merely someone stuck in an impossible situation, doing what she could to survive.” He pulled back until he met her gaze. The puffiness of her eyes shot straight to his heart. “From everything I’ve seen since your arrival, I know you can be kind and patient. Not to mention your determination to save Joey and Ava and how you came up with such a quick-witted plan. And no, don’t say it was just a selfish move. Maybe on the surface, you thought so. But would you have allowed the facility doctors to just take them away and do what they wanted?”
Percy shook her head as she whispered, “No.”
“You’re nothing like those facility arseholes, Percy. If I have to spend the rest of my life convincing you of it, then I’ll gladly do it.”
She blinked. “You still want me?”
He growled. “Of course I bloody want you. Or did you miss the part when I said I loved you?”
