Free Unchanged by Heather Crews

bed would deter him.
    It didn't. He shook her shoulder and ordered her to the bed by pointing a firm finger at it. She didn't move. Angered, he jerked her up and forced her to lie down. As always she was stiff and unresponsive, shamed and afraid.
    Afterward Eve cried plentiful tears. She decided she couldn't stay in her room. She left the house without bothering to be quiet about it. Outside the wind was strong, whistling and snapping with wild ferocity. It dried the tears on her face and whipped her hair straight back. She trudged against it until she reached the back of the house. She slumped to the ground against the outer wall, facing the trees. The light flashed every few seconds. Knowing who tended the light so carefully, she couldn't help but remember the night two years earlier that had changed her life in one horrible instant.
    She hadn't known what Esmond wanted when he'd come into her room. She thought there must have been some kind of emergency with her mother, who had recently taken ill.
    "I need a favor from you, Eve," Esmond had said.
    "Of course," she'd innocently replied.
    "Your mother is very sick," he'd explained, "and I am a man with a man's needs. You understand my meaning, don't you?"
    She hadn't, but she'd nodded anyway. Only when he began to climb on top of her did she realize the truth. She tried to scream, hoping Jocelyn would come to her rescue, but Esmond's hand was firm over her mouth.
    "Tell no one," he'd whispered fiercely. "The knowledge would kill your mother."
    Eve had tried to tell her mother anyway, but she must not have found the proper words because her mother didn't seem to know what she was talking about. She felt alone and afraid. She'd felt the same ever since that night.
    How had she so silently endured those past two years? How had she stayed strong enough? She didn't feel so strong now. She could willingly hike the half-mile down to the beach and swim and swim until she was too tired to go any further. Or she could go to the Point and fling herself off, her body dashing upon the rocks below . . .
    Or she could get Ahaziel to marry her. But how was she supposed to convince him?
    Her hands were numb, she realized. She could hardly bend her fingers. Her right arm ached as it always did in cold weather. How long had she been sitting outside? It didn't matter. Nothing would ever happen the way she had once dreamed. No man would marry such a ruined, melancholy girl. She wouldn't even meet a man, not when the town of Victoria was a long ride away from the isolation of the Point.
    Still, there was Ahaziel. For some reason Eve had the sense he was putting himself to a lot of trouble for her.
    She didn't know how long she sat there, curled against the house, before hands fell on her shoulders. They drew her up. Arms folded gently around her and lifted her off the ground. There was movement, traveling, bones and muscles hard across her body as someone clutched her carefully . . . Then she felt something soft against her back—a mattress, her bed. Eve straightened her legs and felt warmth begin to return to her. She opened her eyes. Ahaziel leaned over her.
    She reached out and took his hand. He didn't draw it away. She didn't question his presence.
    "Were you trying to kill yourself?" he asked. "I can't imagine why else you would go out on a freezing night wearing only your nightgown."
    "I did want to die," Eve admitted blandly. "I was going to drown myself in the sea, or else throw myself onto the rocks."
    "I do not want you killing yourself."
    "Oh, what do you care? You hate me. It wouldn't make any difference to you if I died."
    His strained silence was ambiguous and Eve didn't know whether he agreed with her or if his sentiments were exactly the opposite. He said, "Tell me."
    Her face crumpled. "I can't."
    "Yes, you can. I will suffer with you."
    She stared at him, then closed her eyes. She was going to tell him and couldn't bear to look at him while speaking the words. She began, almost