Chapter 50

His mind reeled. What he'd thought. But the hell, it was all right, wasn't it, to tamp the urge, his first urge, to ask for their names?This wasn't about that. Why ask for what it killed her to give him and then do that?

And yet...?There was something here, something notright. Something that was more than the horror that clawed his innards.

"It … It was only to start with." He didn't speak so she pressed on. "I would be pretending if I didn't learn from the other women to put some kind of stop to it. And of course, that was also when I was probably most in disgrace. But surely you can see how laughable, how pitiable, how ridiculous—"