He lifted me, making me gasp, turning me around on Nillima’s back so I faced him as he brought her to a stop. I looked up at him in surprise, my hands coming to rest on his chest to keep my balance.
His arms wrapped tight, as if I would pull away.
“Davik?”
“I want to tell you about her, leikavi,” he rasped, dropping his forehead down to mine. “About what happened to her and my family.”
“But you need more time,” I guessed softly, hearing what went unspoken in his voice.
“Lysi. One day, I will tell you everything,” he promised.
My smile was sad because I knew that that day would never come. “I understand.”
When he pulled away to regard me, his expression was tight. His eyes flickered like he was trying to decide something, his lips pressed tight together.
His exhale was sharp and then he said, “But I will…I will tell you about what happened afterwards. After my sister and my parents died. I will tell you my story in reverse. And it is something I should have told you before I ever even touched you.”
My brows drew together. His voice was grim…as if whatever he was about to tell me was another one of those things he’d never spoken of.
“Sex is…sex can be difficult for me,” he murmured.
I stiffened, my lips parting, unsure where he was going with this…all the while remembering that night he’d taken me to his bed for the first time. Something had been strange about it and not only because he’d been too rough in the beginning. He’d kept saying he wanted to be right for me—as if he was already broken.
“After my family died, I was alone,” he said, his voice gruff. “I was alone in Dothik with little gold. The hordes…we have no concept of payment, not like in the capital. We work together to live. We exchange goods, not gold. But in Dothik, gold is life and without it, you are as good as dead.”
I sat still, my hands still pressed to his chest so I felt how quickly his heart was beating beneath my palm.
“There was a female that took me in from the streets,” he rasped. “Her…her name was Mala.”
Unease churned in my gut because I knew. I knew where this story was leading and I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for it. But I needed to hear this because it was Davik’s story. I wanted to know every part of him, every happy memory, every darkened corner.
“She housed me and fed me. Truthfully, I do not remember much from that time. I was still deep in my grief. The world did not seem real without my family. Nothing did. The only emotions I felt were rage and despair. And Mala…she fed on those things. She fed on me.”
“She…” I whispered, swallowing. “Did she rape you?”
Davik flinched, his hands tightening around me. He went silent and I sat, frozen in front of him. The world started to buzz in my ears, the blood underneath my skin rushing restlessly.
“Lysi,” he rasped and I knew how hard it was for him to say that word. “But at the time, I do not think I realized that. In my eyes, I was exchanging sex for food. For shelter. In that way, I felt more like a whore. But Mala…she liked to be fucked a certain way.”
My heartbeat was pounding in my temple.
I want to be right for you, leikavi, he’d said, while deep inside my body. I remembered thinking he’d been using his strength against me, not for me…that first time we’d had sex.
His breathing was ragged, his exhales filling the space between us. “She…she trained me to fuck her rough, to hurt her. She liked it. She craved it. Soon, that was all I knew too.”
Oh gods.
“Though it has been years and years since she last touched me…sometimes I still slip into the way I was with her. I was so used to fucking my rage and grief and fear into her that it is difficult to disassociate those emotions from sex.”
“Davik,” I breathed, my brows drawn, my throat tight.
“I did it with you,” he admitted. “You felt it. I felt fear with you and I slipped right back into that place. I fucking hate it. I hate that I hurt you.”
“Why did you fear me?” I whispered.
His jaw was tight and tense. Slowly, his hand reached up to brush my cheek, to smooth back my hair.