Free Desecrating Solomon: Book 1 of 3 (Desecration Series) by Lucian Bane Page B

her.
    She lost the battle and a long sob wrenched free.
    The bathroom door banged open and the shower curtain yanked aside. But Chaos couldn’t move, she could only sit there, head too heavy to lift, bracing her hands against the wall. If she let go, everything would crash in on her. All of it.
    “I got you,” he said, putting strong arms around her body.
    The feel of power in his firm embrace and those three words tore her soul asunder in one second. And all the things that could never reach her, never touch her, suddenly speared her through and through. The sobs came like resurrected ghosts, screaming their secrets. Broken! they all screamed. Torn! Burned! Tortured! Wave after wave of buried tragedy that wasn’t hers and was, raged out of her.
    And just beyond all this, she felt it. The looming wrath of the Order. She had failed, ultimately the fault would be on her no matter who was responsible. She’d take the blame as she always did. The Redemptrix Vessel was the medium between the sacred and desecrated. And not only had she failed Master, she’d failed the queen, and the Order. And that didn’t come without penalty. Rights would have to be strictly wronged before the planned restitution could continue. She was sure of that.

Chapter Eight
     
    Solomon had never experienced such torture while this woman released such vile trauma. All he could think was what in God’s name has this woman been through?
    The amount of devastation in her soul-wrenching sobs would haunt his days and nights forever. He’d never not feel them or hear them. Ever. He could only hold on to her tight, uselessly shhhing, shhhing, over and over as the unfixable suffocated them both.
    Finally, her screaming sobs reduced to pitiful wails that came on every jagged breath that jerked her body until she literally passed out on him.
    Solomon turned off the shower with one hand and yanked a towel from the bar behind him. Covering her while careful not to look, he lifted her in his arms and carried her slowly to the bed. When he tried to lay her down, her arms became iron bands around his neck, forcing him to lay with her. Shoving the blanket between her naked body and him, he adjusted her until she lay comfortably in his arms. Pulling the light quilt from the foot of the bed, he managed to get her covered entirely.
    When he was halfway comfortable himself, he took several deep breaths trying to wrap his mind around what was happening and what to do about it. There he was, lying in his bed with a complete stranger involved in some horrific shit. And he realized that there was something not right about her. He wasn’t sure what yet but her “I’m normal you know” was when it hit him. She wasn’t normal. But what was wrong with her was the question? She didn’t seem mentally challenged. But psychotic was becoming a probable diagnosis at least in some degree. The shit that went down in the bathroom made it crystal clear that the trauma was deeper than this one horrific event.
    God, what had he stepped into?
    For the next two hours, Solomon laid with her, humming the same tune he’d hummed the first time when she had bad dreams. He tried to keep himself awake by mentally going over all the crap he still needed to do between helping this woman and tending to Miss Mary. It was a real bad time for this zoo debacle he had going on. Twelve traps would need checking on top of everything else. His overachieving ways were biting him in the ass now. He’d just not bait them all again.
    Solomon froze at the sound of scratching on the front door. He lay there, still, listening. The scratching came again, sending his heart into his stomach. Very carefully he untangled himself from Chaos and tiptoed to his gun. Avoiding the floorboards that creaked, he made his way to the door, steering clear of the window. Getting the gun ready in one hand, he quickly undid the dead bolt and threw the door open with a bang, barrel aimed.
    His gaze quickly dropped to a pure