She still had a soul—just like the animals I’d rescued.
She was still a living, breathing creature who didn’t deserve to be treated like an object. Who was I to own her body instead of her? Who made me god, controlling her lifespan instead of fate?
But…she wasn’t an animal.
She wasn’t some helpless creature who needed me to be her champion.
She was human.
She had the capacity that all humans did—to choose herself over the lives of others. To be superior against feathered or furred. To willingly ignore that their pain was just as excruciating as hers.
But Skittles trusts her…
“Sully!”
I raked a hand through my hair, noticing the quake in my body. “Stop yelling. I’m right here.”
Her hands wrapped tight around the bars, her face strained and worried. “But you weren’t…you still stood there, but you…your mind wasn’t here.”
I snorted, doing my best to dispel the rest of my past.
I didn’t know why it’d chosen that moment to swarm me. To come so thick and fast. Normally, the memories found me when I was asleep, forming into nightmares I couldn’t escape from, clinging to my thoughts long after I’d woken up, fighting ghosts and mourning those I’d failed.
I never usually let them take hold. Never usually allowed that stupid kid inside me to make me suffer moral behaviour. I dabbled in human flesh because each time I’d trusted someone, they’d turned out to be a devil in disguise.
I happily bought and sold women because frankly, they deserved it.
I had no qualms about men being killed or bad things happening to the human race because we’d caused so, so much worse to other species. It was karma. Justified. Warranted.
Wiping my mouth, I struggled to remember what we spoke about before my trip down unwanted memory lane.
Ah, yes.
She’d guessed what I’d known since I was a boy. She’d been the trigger for my relapse.
Humans aren’t to be trusted.
You’re right, Eleanor Grace. And that is why I will never trust you.
It’d always turned out to be the ones closest to me that failed me the most. Therefore, I wouldn’t give her the opportunity.
Throwing her into that chimpanzee cage, allowing her to be oppressed and confined just like Ace the aging, disease-riddled ape had been before I’d rescued and euthanized him, had been one of the hardest things I’d ever fucking done.
It’d gone against my basic make-up as a man, but it’d also been necessary.
She was a threat.
To me.
To Skittles.
To my motherfucking heart.
It was time to leave.
Necessary to get the hell out of there, before I said or did something that went against every rule I’d followed since I found out that my mother had been using the animals I rescued as her own personal lab tests.
For years, I’d funded her experiments.
Stupidly handing over healthy, tamed animals that no one would miss.
Fuck!
My hands balled as I backed away from the cage. “Goodnight, Jinx. I assume you won’t sleep well.”
She shook her head, her gorgeous long hair licking over her arms and shoulders. She was once again regal and refined. “No. Don’t go. Not yet. I want to know. I need to understand. Please—”
I tutted under my breath. “There is nothing to understand. Don’t reduce yourself to begging. If you last one night with your dignity intact, then you will return to your villa. You will once again be given anything you desire. You will feel the sun on your face and the rain in your hair. You will sleep on softness and spend your days doing whatever you wish.” My tone turned black. “However, if you disobey me again. If you talk to me out of line. If you attempt to connect with me. If you continue to chase something that isn’t there to be chased, then this will be your new accommodations.”
Panic painted her cheeks, but she held her tongue from begging. Pushing off from the bars, she stood in the centre of the cage as regal and as noble as any priestess. Greek goddess, Egyptian sylph, or powerful enchantress, nothing compared to her.
Even in a simple robe, she was dressed in a gown of riches, dripping with magic that made me fight the constant urge to bow to her.
“Goodnight, El-Jinx.” I turned and stalked toward the door.
Her gentle voice tiptoed after me. “I understand your desire to protect animals from cruelty, Sully. I’m the same. I get that drive. I have the same bleeding heart to help. So I won’t curse you for locking me in a cage that some poor animal has probably died in. But…” Steel gilded with silver filled her tone. “I will never forgive you for doing exactly what others have done to the same souls you stand up for. Regardless of what you say, I am worthy of the same protection. I feel the same level of helplessness. I’m just as dependent on you as they are. And this is what you’re doing to me. This is how you’re treating me. That’s not justice. It’s hypocritical.”