Samurai Game (Ghostwalkers, #10)(81)
You are safe with me.
He stood in front of her, holding out his hand, palm up, his dark eyes locked on her face. She studied his face, so still he could have been carved of stone, but for his eyes. So alive. So tender. This man stood before her, offering her everything, offering her paradise, and she’d thrown it back in his face because she was still that white-haired child a brutal, inhuman monster had declared useless. She’d allowed her own fears to overcome what she knew of him. He was a man of honor, and yet she dishonored him by not believing he could handle the things she needed to tell him. In truth, it was Thorn who couldn’t handle them.
“Not Whitney, Azami,” Sam disagreed, obviously still reading her thoughts. “You are considering rejecting me, not because of Whitney, but because you mistook what your father said to you because you believed in a monster and that was the only way you could make sense of everything.”
Her gaze dropped to the object in Sam’s open palm. Her heart jumped. She’d recognize her father’s work anywhere. He was as famous for his intricate jewelry as he was for his swords. She didn’t touch that very small ring, but actually stepped back to look up at Sam.
It took a moment to find her voice. “Where did you get that?”
“Your brother gave it to me. He said your father made it for the man who would bring you happiness. He knew the right man would come along and fall like a ton of bricks for you. You’re so easy to want, Azami, so easy to love, but you still reject who and what you are. You are Thorn, that incredibly brave girl who has grown into a remarkable woman. Look at the ring and tell me your father didn’t see the true Azami for everything she is and everything she stands for. He loved Azami because she’s Thorn.”
She didn’t want to look at the ring. She wanted to look at his face. This man who believed in her when she’d momentarily lost herself. This was a man who would always find that small child huddled in a corner and he’d lift her up, shelter and protect her.
“How blind could I be? How reckless?” she murmured in wonder.
“Your father knows how brave that child is, he always knew. He took you home because he knew your worth. He saw it even as you lay in that street. He put his life on the line to take you from those men. That’s Thorn, Azami. That courage of spirit. That will to survive. Whitney couldn’t break you as a child. Don’t let him do it to the woman.”
Still, she didn’t take the ring. Instead, she looked at the man holding her father’s gift out to her. Sam was really the gift. The sun would always rise in his eyes. He would always be the man who saw her. Almost from the first moment he laid eyes on her, he had looked past her physical body and really embraced her—who she was as a person. She hadn’t done the same to him. Had she looked carefully into his mind, she would have seen unconditional acceptance, but she’d been so certain he wouldn’t want Thorn. Little Thorn with her misshapen body, carved up by a butcher, with her freakish white hair, useless and thrown away like garbage.
Sam had given himself fully to her, everything he was, right from the moment their minds connected. He didn’t try to hide the loyalty he had to his team, or the struggle he felt knowing he had to tell them about her, but he’d stayed true to his character. He let her see who he was while she tried to hide herself from him.
“I’m sorry, Sam. I really am. I don’t know why I can’t seem to let go of Whitney’s evaluation of me.”
“Because every child wants their father’s approval, and for all intents and purposes, Whitney was your parent,” Sam said.
She hated that he spoke the truth. She’d had no one else but Whitney for so long. “He kept me away from the other girls for the most part. There was one girl he called Winter. She was able to stop a heart from beating just with a touch. He made her practice on me, and she would cry and tell me she was sorry. She tried to protect me, but he’d punish her, terrible punishments if she didn’t do what he said. She snuck food to me sometimes, and once she gave me a blanket. Whitney took it away from me when he said I was bad.”
Sam curled his hand around the nape of her neck. He had a big hand and instead of feeling trapped, she felt safe.
“I should be over it, Sam. I’m a grown woman.”
He laughed softly. “Do you really think that the past doesn’t shape who we are? Everyone has moments of weakness. You didn’t believe you would ever be with a man who would love you, which by the way, makes no sense to me. You have a view of yourself skewed by the things Whitney drilled into you as a child. He was wrong about your gifts, Azami. Totally wrong. If he was wrong about that, then he can be wrong about other things as well. Whitney makes mistakes. And he made a big mistake about you.”
“He destroyed my body,” Azami said, clutching the shirt-tails, her hands two tight fists. “Not just my scars on the outside. My heart was destroyed by him as well.” She raised her eyes to his. “It isn’t normal.” The truth was going to come out whether she wanted it to or not. She had to tell him. It was only fair if she wanted a life with him. No lies between them, not even the sin of omission.
Sam stepped closer to her. “Azami, do you think that would drive me away from you? I want you, just the way you are. If your heart is weak, we can . . .”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Not weak. He thought I’d die from his experiment, but I didn’t.” She was going to have to tell him. If she was going to truly give them a chance together, he had to know how much of a mutant being Whitney had made.