Free Beauty's Beasts by Tracy Cooper-Posey Page B

that she was shaking him, or that she was crying his name, until Nicholas uncurled her fists from Damian’s coat one finger at a time, picked her up, sat her in his lap and turned her face into his chest. His arms shut out the ambient light.
    She wept in great wracking sobs that hurt her chest and her head and Nicholas did not say a word. It wasn’t until she rested silently against him that he wiped her cheeks with his hand and then licked his fingers of her tears. “Control is an illusion, Riley. No one ever has total control, however much they like to think they do.”
    She watched the way he relished the taste of her tears. “Do you know what I’ve just done?” Her voice was hoarse and ragged.
    “You just lost what you thought was control,” Nicholas said calmly. “We forced you to it deliberately.” He pushed her bangs out of her eyes and tucked them behind her ear.
    She might have felt a cold chill in the region of her heart except that her capacity for surprise and hurt and shock had maxed out. She stared at him.
    A hand curled around her neck and she caught her breath. She knew instantly it was Damian’s, even without looking around. Nicholas was beginning to smile.
    “You tricked me,” she told him.
    “We…suggested. The power of suggestion was enough.”
    Finally, she had the courage to turn and look at Damian. He sat right behind her, and although his coat was still stained in blood and ripped where her knife had sliced clear through it, his stomach was healed. He’d wiped his mouth of blood already.
    “You son of a bitch,” she breathed.
    “Guilty,” he agreed.
    “Do you know what you put me through just then?”
    “No. I really was…well, I guess unconscious is as good a term as any. I plan on asking Nick for details later though.” He didn’t even have the grace to look uncomfortable about such an intimate discussion. His expression sobered. “But it needed to be done, Riley. You cannot go on believing you can operate alone and in control like you were.”
    “But if there is no such thing as control, then what is there? Something must exist if there is no such thing as control, or the world would be in chaos.”
    Damian nodded. “Trust.”
    She stared at him. “Trust.” She half laughed. “You’re kidding me.”
    He shook his head.
    “Three thousand years, we’ve split the atom, gone to Mars, there’s no such thing as control and what’s really running the world is trust ?”
    He smiled. “Yes.”
    Nick’s arms tightened around her. “He really is not fooling around,” he murmured.
    Damian got to his feet. “Trust is something you give. Control is something you take. They’re two sides of the same coin. It starts very simply by giving your trust to a few. Perhaps one, if that is all you can bring yourself to give up control to. You lay your life, your love, your trust in the hands of another and expect that they will not let you down. Ever.”
    “That’s it?”
    “It’s no simple matter, Riley. You’ve already had a small taste of how complex handing over trust can be. There’s sorts of trust you can give. From all consuming, complete-life trust,” and he glanced at Nicholas, “to just trusting that someone will come through with tonight’s meal for you. People give their trust all the time, from their dentist to their coffee clerk, without realizing the implied contract between them. They think the world runs on control, but it’s running on trust. Control isn’t going to do you any good if the trust isn’t there. You can’t force people to behave. In three thousand years, we have learned that much.”
    He held out his hand to her. “I need a shower,” he said simply, “and you need better food and sleep. The sculptor will have to wait for tomorrow, Nick.”
    Riley stifled the need to protest.
    “Of course,” Nicholas said, instantly letting her go. He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. It was an old-fashioned move, but it didn’t feel silly