Ryder lets out a small chuckle and the harmonic sound tints my cheeks with warmth. "I can feel Maxon pushing to get in now but there was more before but depending on the rank of the wolf trying to get in depends on how strongly I get the sensation of someone pushing at my head." I just smile up at him not saying anything and he seems perfectly content with the silence between us but after a while I break the look and turn back to open my book and continue from where I left off. When Ryder's fingers brush over my temple I nearly moan out in pleasure. "I can't get into your mind but I can see how much whatever memory that you have scares you. If I could I would take them away and replace them with a happy one but I can't." His fingers continue to caress their way down the side of my face till he reaches my jaw and angles my face up towards his that has moved closer to mine in the small moments of silence. His breath cool and minty as it fans over my cheeks. "Tell me what happened and I'll try to make it all stop." He whispers finally my eyes flicking down to his lips to watch as every word escapes the lushness of them. With a deep swallow I build up the courage to tell him hoping that he's right that when I get it off my chest I will feel better and that just maybe he'll be able to replace it with something worthy. When he sees that my hands have begun to shake again, he takes them and slides down to lie closer to me. I feel his hand twitch around mine but he doesn't move it, he just grips it tighter to stop the little muscle flex. "I was fourteen when the police came and removed me from the last foster home I was in before I escaped Carlett." My eyes are already beginning to water but Ryder doesn't break the contact. "I'd been there for only a couple days but it was the first time I had actually been alone with the dad. He was always looking at me and playing with his pants while he did, and when he took my hand and asked for me to come into his bedroom." Ryder cut's me off with a growl but he tells me to continue with a tense voice. "I was so scared. He pushed me down onto the bed and got on top of me. The entire time I felt what he was doing was right. His touch was soft and not at all forceful. He was telling me that it was right and that was how I was expressing my feelings for my dad that if I was good he would adopt me." Ryder's hands are shaking and when he drops them. I think the dam of tears that are building up at the back of my eyes will explode without his touch but I notice that his hands are shaking more than mine and that his claws have extended back out. When his fingers wrap themselves through the belt loops of my jeans, pulling me in closer to him. Having him this close to me means that I can rest my hands on his chest and I can feel the hammering of his heart. "I didn't stop him as he unzipped my jeans I knew I needed to, that what he said was wrong and so was what he was doing but a part of me wanted a home and a family. He pulled off my shirt and seconds later he was being pulled off me. A female officer was quick to wrap one of the sheets around me, her words were what really made me realise that none of what happened was my fault." "Something like that isn't in your control. Nobody should have ever broken your trust like that, not at that age." Ryder's pulling me in even closer to him and despite how I know what we're talking about should make what he's doing uncomfortable for me, I find myself savouring in the touch. "What happened to him?" "He was arrested. He was raping his wife and blackmailed her into marrying him. He had raped two other foster girls before me and I would have been next if they hadn't been investigating one of the other girls. He got four hundred years for what he did, he's never getting out." I whisper just before I drop my head to his chest, hiding my face. "He should have been killed for what he did." Ryder seethes his chest rumbling beneath my ear. I didn't think he needed to be killed. What he did was wrong and he's been punished for it by spending the rest of his life behind bars. It's becoming clear that this was what Ryder believes. I can't blame him it's the way he was raised and how his race lives and I can see what crimes they found punishable by death. Ryder himself is very protective of women. Ryder's hands are slow and unsure as he wraps them around my waist closing the last of the distance between us. "How old are you now Lottie?" The way he asks the question I'm unsure whether he wants to know the answer or not. Theo told me that Ryder was twenty three and his birthday was in late June. There was an age difference between us, not a massive one but it was still wider than what most people considered normal and accepted. When I was I found in that park there was nothing to identify who I was, not even a countless number of blood test could find a birth certificate. My birthday was narrowed down to be somewhere in between late November and early October by how far along my physical development was when they found me. "I'm seventeen now but I turn eighteen in about two months." I try to angle my head to look up at him but he's tightened his grip. "You're young. If they couldn't identify you, you belong to the United Kingdom government. By law they have the right to take you back because you're underage." My fingers wrap themselves around the neck of Ryder's shirt and that's when all the tears I've been holding in come out. Ryder's grip becomes sure around me as he tells me that he won't let me go back to any of them, this is my new home and they can't take me. It takes half an hour for me to calm down enough that I can stop crying. Ryder didn't once loosen his hold on me. His hands have been warmly moving up and down my back his fingers massaging against my spine. When I told him that I was feeling better he let me pull back but I was still close to him. He had lied out on his back with a foot of space between us but his hand closet to me had found its way beneath my shirt, his skin rubbing against mine just above the line of my jeans.