“I don’t know if I should be very worried or very happy right now.”

Brass frowned. “We should be happy. She is attractive and they are having a good time together.”

“It’s Wrath. We both have reasons to worry.”

Brass hesitated. “It is a different experience with humans but nothing to be worried about. We have control of our bodies and strength. He will be fine and so will she.”

“You have never had to endure what we have.” Shadow’s voice lowered. “We’ve been conditioned against human females. The sight of their bodies drives us into rages when we remember what was done to us. Sex isn’t appealing but shameful and painful. We’re both terrified that we might snap if we were to have a female in our beds. We’ve discussed it at length.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to you but I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a reasonable male, he’s protective of her and I believe he cares.”

“Seeing one na**d would be reliving what they did to us. You have never been forced to ejaculate your se**n—the machine doesn’t stop and it hurts. Your dick remains hard because we are designed that way and hours of pain pass with only short bursts of pleasure when your body is forced to come. Images of human women are what they showed us to keep our dicks hard with the help of the drugs.”

Brass paled slightly. “I had forgotten the extent of your abuse.”

“Wrath was afraid last night to take her to his room. His attraction to her was very strong.”

“She is attractive.”

“You have no idea. After you left to talk with Vengeance I asked her to take her hair down. Wrath dropped a plate of food.”

Brass grunted. “Long and beautiful?”

Shadow nodded. “Definitely hair a man would want to spread out in his fingers and rub on his body. It looked very soft.”

Brass glanced at his watch. “If he is not here soon we will leave without him.”

“We should check on them to make certain they are fine.”

“They sounded fine. Perhaps his need to protect her is overriding his conditioning. She wasn’t screaming for help when she said his name.”

“I’m still worried.”

“Have faith in the male. I do.”

Shadow hesitated. “He was always stronger than I was. I have to believe he won’t harm her. We will leave without him anyway. One of us has to remain behind to guard the female or we’ll have to trust some of the human males to care for her here while we are gone.”

Brass’ fingers tapped the tabletop. “I was hoping to take her with us. I wanted to use her to bait Bill. We’ll give them more time.”

* * * * *

Lauren huddled on the bed with the towel wrapped around her when the shower ended and Wrath entered the room with a matching towel tucked around his hips. His dark gaze sought her out and he slowly approached until he lowered to his knees in front of her. Sadness showed in his expression and it tore at her heart.

“I’m sorry. I scared you, didn’t I?”

“I don’t understand. Are you into pain? Is that it?”

“No.” He stroked the back of her hand with his fingertips. “Mercile did some things to me that make me afraid I will hurt you.” He stopped rubbing and gripped her hand. “They used images of human females to cause me pain. I’m afraid I will lose control if I’m inside you because they combined pleasure with severe pain. I don’t trust myself enough yet to risk taking the chance that I’d lose the ability to separate the experiences.”

“You, um, were so rough with, um, you know.” Her cheeks burned.

“They gave me a high pain tolerance while forcing me to give them my seed.”

Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them back. “They forced you to masturbate? Do you like pain now with sex? Is that it? I read a lot of books and I know some people need that.”

A soft growl rumbled from him. “No. I don’t wish pain for either of us. I just am afraid if I enter you that I’ll lose control because it will feel too good. I’m terrified I’ll take you too roughly and I won’t be able to stop.”

She stared deeply into his eyes. “I don’t believe that.”

“It happened. They did vile things to me.”

“I meant I don’t believe that you’d be rough with me and cause me pain. You’ve been nothing but wonderful. I admit my sexual experiences aren’t that vast but I wish you could see yourself the way I do now.”

“Give me time.”

The humor struck her and she laughed. “I can’t go home, remember? We have plenty of that.”

“I’m sorry you’re stuck with me.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m not.”

“We should get dressed and go eat. We’re both hungry.”

“Okay.”

“I am sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She meant it. There was a lot she didn’t understand but he was a tortured soul, one who had experienced deep emotional pain as well as physical, and obviously actual intercourse was something he feared. “We’ll work through this.”

He released her hand, stood, and got them both clothes from his dresser. She was becoming accustomed to him seeing her naked, didn’t hesitate to drop the towel, and made the best of the sweats he gave her. They were too large but he used a knife to cut off some of the legs and the arm length enough to free her hands and feet.