Saving Her Angel (Archangels) by Missy Jane Page B

really saw them, but was perhaps stuck in the memories of her past. Pain and fear filled her gaze and her aura. He closed the distance and hugged her against his chest until the rhythm of her heartbeat slowed. Everyone remained quiet until she seemed calm enough that he no longer feared she might faint.
    After a few minutes her muffled voice filled the silence. “He said it was my fault. He said I killed her.”
    “Who did?”
    Pulling her head back from his chest, she finally met his eyes again. “The man at the compound. He told me it was my fault. That if I had just listened it wouldn’t have happened. I disobeyed, and my mom died.”
    The tears he’d seen trapped in her eyes finally burst free, and he tightened his hold. He carried her to the sofa and cradled her in his lap while she cried her heart out.
    …
    A flood of emotions threatened to overwhelm Eleanor as she sobbed against Cam’s chest. Terror, pain, uncertainty, she relived it all as he held her and murmured soothing words. She was vaguely aware of his brothers leaving the room. Though she felt grateful for the privacy, she couldn’t tear herself away from Cam to even acknowledge them. The tears kept coming, and she just held on tight until the storm passed. Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind.
    He smoothed her hair away from her face and removed her glasses to wipe her tears away, then he placed a kiss on her forehead. She finally opened her eyes to find him watching her.
    “Better?” he asked.
    She hiccupped. “A little.” His grin definitely helped. “I’m sorry.”
    He covered her lips with one finger. “Don’t. You have absolutely no reason to apologize. How old were you when that happened?”
    She sighed and closed her eyes, both to think it over and to take a break from his concerned gaze. His presence overwhelmed her, and her emotions were already all over the place. With that thought in mind, she sat up and gently pushed away from him. He let her go but kept a hand on her hip and urged her to sit beside him. She took her glasses from him and put them back on.
    “I was maybe five. I know I’d already started school, but I don’t think it had been a full year yet when my mother took me out so we could move into the compound.”
    “Compound?”
    She sighed, the soul-deep sound cleansing. How long had it been since she’d given these memories free reign? Almost certainly too long, but there was no one she trusted more than Cam. If she could ever confess the truth of her childhood horrors to anyone, it should be to him.
    “Go ahead and tell your brothers to come back in so I don’t have to say this twice.”
    “I can open my mind to them if you’d rather just speak to me.”
    An unexpected smile formed at his thoughtfulness. “No, that’s all right.”
    As his brothers returned, she moved over to the other sofa before they could sit. They took her cue and sat with Cam instead, but he didn’t seem too happy with the arrangement. When he started to rise, she held up her hand. “No. I need to get this all out, and if you’re next to me…you’re a distraction.”
    His brothers chuckled as he frowned, but he sat back down. “All right. Go ahead.”
    After clearing her throat, she fell into the story. “It all started after my parents split up. We moved because Mom couldn’t afford our house all by herself. We moved to Oklahoma. I remember being afraid that a tornado would get us, but she promised we’d be okay because the place we were moving to was protected by a higher power.”
    She put her face in her hands a moment as more memories surfaced. Not all of them were bad, but it was overwhelming to just remember so much of her past all at once.
    “Elle?”
    A glance up showed her the very concerned gazes of all three men. It eased some of the remembered fear tightening her throat. She was safe and with friends.
    “Okay, so we moved to this place in Oklahoma somewhere. It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There seemed to be