Alec bit back the questions. There was no point asking what he already knew. He had studied each and every wound, every mark, every blemish. As a child, he had wanted nothing more than to protect her. After all, that was what a man should do, protect anyone who needed it. But it had always been different with Jesse, more primal, a need that ran deeper. He could see there had been more than her father’s hand at work and dared not dwell on the thoughts of what she had endured.
He cursed himself silently. He should have tried harder to get back to her. No, he shouldn’t have tried, he should have done it. He had failed her, broken each and every promise he had ever made. Adeline, Jesse's mother, had asked only one thing of him, that he make her happy. Soul-bonded, that was the word she had us
