== Enna’s POV ==

He lifted his hands off of my shoulders as rage filled his eyes with darkness, he stepped away from me taking a few deep breath.

“Did…one…of them…touch you?” he asked. I could see him struggle to keep a hold on his wolf while anger consumed him. Seeing his reaction was like a ray of sunshine in my pain. I hated to talk about it, and I didn’t want to, especially because most of it was still fresh in my memory, but I had decided to trust him, despite knowing him only for a few days. I guess it wasn’t him I trusted, but what we were.

We were both shifters and I had known my fair share of them, enough to know that for all of the humanity we show, we are hopelessly linked with our animal self. For wolves, their mates were the sacred other half of their being, I had seen how it worked on multiple occasions, and I couldn’t help it, I had to trust the bond as much as I trusted my healing gift. The way he acted made me believe that I was right.

“No” I answered stepping to my feet to get closer to him.

“Don’t” he said motioning me to stop where I was. “I don’t want to shift and hurt you by accident, just keep explaining ok?”

I nodded, stepping back to the fallen over tree. “When I was kidnapped, I wasn’t fertile yet, so they didn’t try anything with me at first. Anyway I doubt this is why they wanted me in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. His muscles looked less tense by now and his eyes went back to a calmer state. He didn’t come back next to me but I felt less of the overpowering anger that had crashed over him.

“You’ve seen what my gift is” I explained, “I think it is more valuable…of course, making little ones would also be profitable but I was too young at the time.”

“When did they take you?” he asked, stepping closer again.

Memories flashed into my mind as his question pushed me to recall the events. I had suppressed most of these memories in a corner of my mind for so long that at first everything was a bit of a blur, but then the images flooded my vision like a terribly realistic movie.

“I was eleven” I murmured. “We were on vacation, just my parents and I…”

I explained to him all of the images that came back into my mind. The small hotel on the coast with furniture from the seventies, the fat lady at the reception who looked at us like we were freaks. We should have known. We spend two days there, playing on the beach and in the waves. I remembered my dad taking me to a book store and telling me to “pick one” because it was my special treat for this trip. I remembered my mom combing my hair that night after we had to use too much conditioner to get all of the knots out. I remembered falling into the deepest of sleeps, the ones you get from a day so full of happiness that you are exhausted. I remembered that I was entirely oblivious to the danger, because I knew that I was different from my classmates, but also that we were not arming anyone. I remembered being awaken by screams, my parent’s bodies thrown in front of me in a hopeless protection wall. It didn’t take long for them to crumble to the floor with ragged breaths as the old mustard carpet became crimson with their blood. I woke up “in the facility” as an orphan slave to their mad research.

I didn’t remember however that I fell to my knees while explaining this, or that my face was entirely covered with an ocean of my own tears. Through the veil of water, I saw Simon, kneeling in front of me, softly trying to calm me down. His anger was controlled by the deepest compassion I had ever seen on someone else’s face. He didn’t seem to dare to touch me further than just gently stroking my arm but I dared.

I needed security, I needed comfort, and for the longest time, only my cellmates had been able to provide that, but it is hard to comfort someone when your reality is the same hell. I saw him and he was my escape, someone who could share and understand, and someone I could vent to, like my own personal vacuum. I let myself fall forward, crashing my face into his shoulder while he encircled me with his arms like a cage of comfort.

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== Author's note ==

It seems like there is a problem with getting update notifications lately. I hope you don't have too much issues :(