Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
AIDEN
Levi’s holding me with trembling arms, his breaths still ragged and strained as he sucks on my nipple. I thread my fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him as I press a kiss to the top of his head.
It’s been hours since I asked him to kill me and he couldn’t, but he’s still as shaken as he was when I stabbed him. He helped me patch him up, but I still think he needs to have someone that’s not me look at his wound. I don’t think he cares right now, though. The only thing he wants is to stay as close to me as physically possible, and I don’t blame him. Now that I’ve decided to give in, I don’t want him going anywhere, even if that means he has to be in pain.
Still, a question rests on the tip of my tongue that I know he won’t understand, but I have to ask. “Do you feel bad?” His eyes flick up to mine for clarification, lips still suckling me. “About hurting me. Do you feel bad?” He nods and I press. “Because you actually do or because you think you have to?”
To this, he hesitates. He gives me one little lick before pulling away and pressing his forehead against mine. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
I think about it and end up shaking my head. “I don’t think it does.”
Even though my mind is still royally pissed at him, and even though my body hates him for what he did, my heart knows it wasn’t him who hurt me. It was his monster, the one that lives deep in his skull, who clawed its way out and only saw me as an easy target.
I finger the skin around his throat, scarred and so red it’s painful to look at, where his collar used to be. Without it, he’s volatile, likely to hurt just about anybody, including me.
“Aiden, if it means anything, I never want it to happen again,” he says, nuzzling his nose against the base of my throat. “I prefer you happy and healthy.”
I chuckle. “Me too. But I get it.”
“You do?” he asks, eyes widening as he sits up. “What do you mean?”
Levi’s never been a poster boy for mental health, and I recognize that it’s one of the things that drew me to him in the first place. Not because I’m a sucker for somebody to fix but because I think my soul understood who he was before I did. Because it found someone that could potentially understand it too.
“There’s a darkness in me that I’ve been trying to hide,” I explain. “Something that I’ve fought against for years because it scares me to think of what I’ll become if I fully let it take control.”
He places his hand over my heart, a look of understanding in his gray eyes. “I know. I feel it.”
“I know you do.” I scoff, shaking my head. “Fuck, sometimes I hate you for it.”
He chuckles, placing his hand on my cheek, and rubbing his thumb against my split lip. “But it’s safe with me, little lamb. You are safe with me.”
I’m not and I don’t need to be.
He could hurt me again. He could change his mind and kill me at any second.
But I realize that’s okay now because I’ll want him to be my villain forever.
“That's why I ran. After…” I blush thinking back to the night I lost control and did things I never thought I’d do. I don’t have to say it for him to shoot me a wolfish grin of pride. “Well, I just couldn’t handle what I saw when I looked in the mirror. You bring out the worst in me and it scares me.”
“Aiden, nobody will ever understand you the way I do,” he promises, rolling on top of me, and bracketing my face with his arms. “No one will ever treasure you like I do. Every part of you is meant for me. You don’t have to hide from me.”
It feels good to know that. It’s true. I can feel it deep in my bones that I will never find anyone else that will understand me. He will be with me through anything—his loyalty unwavering—and I think that’s something I’ve been searching for my entire life.
But still…
“It’s hard.”
He shrugs. “I can’t say I know what that feels like.”
“Because you’ve embraced it,” I point out, running a finger against his red neck. “You’re not afraid of it.”
“It’s…” His nostrils flare as he rolls his shoulders. “...Controlled.”
I cock my head, nibbling on my bottom lip. “How do you not just burn the world down? How do you stop yourself?”
“I’m somebody’s weapon. The demon inside of me isn’t mine. That’s what I have to tell myself.”
I gulp, knowing that my next words are evil, are wrong, but once again understanding that I can speak them freely now. “Sometimes I want to hurt people.”
“Yeah?” he asks, his interest piqued. “Why?”
“Just because… There’s not always a reason.” I take a deep breath, admitting more truths I never thought I’d speak. “I think I was happy when I found out Jennifer was dead.”
“Good,” he snorts. “She was a bitch. You’re mine.”
I nod. She really was the worst, wasn’t she? A part of me that’s done hiding wishes I had been there when it happened.
I look at Levi—all the scars on his face, his haunted gray eyes that somehow shine with clarity—and I think about him as a person, him as a beast, and him as a child. He told me about his past. He was taken at an early age and molded into the man he is today. “Do you think if you were raised somewhere else you would have turned out different?”
“No,” he says this with absolute confidence. “I was born like this.”
I can see that. He’s too twisted and sick to have ever had a chance to be normal. I know it costs him to even try but with me it’s different. “I don’t think I was.”
“What do you mean?”
“My darkness. The thoughts. They started after…”
“After what?”
“It’s our little secret.”
This is the moment I’ve been trying to run from. To acknowledge what happened all those years ago is inconceivable, but I’m convinced it’s the root of my demons. I know for certain that I might never have turned out this way had it not happened. I came from a nurturing, loving family. I came from a place where everything was golden—milk and cookies, toys from Santa, family board game nights—it was a perfect childhood.
Until it wasn’t.
“When I was younger, my uncle and my dad. They used to—” My voice trembles as I speak, pins and needles erupting under my skin. “It’s hard to talk about.”
He shakes his head and clenches his jaw, almost upset at me. “You can tell me anything, little lamb. I will never judge you. I will never abandon you.”
And it’s with a deep breath that I dive into the past.
“They would… touch me.”
His eyes widen and he tenses above me. “How?”
I shake my head. “Do I have to say it?”
Levi is smart. He knows how wicked people can be. He can connect the dots.
The actual event is blurry in my mind. I used to go somewhere else when it happened, somewhere they couldn’t hurt me, and it’s only little snippets I remember with absolute clarity. I don’t want to go back there, no matter how much I should, and I’m okay with that.
He nods in understanding. “No. No, you don’t.”
“And after, I just felt so disgusting. So shameful. Eventually, it stopped, but I was never the same after. I think my mom knew that too. I think she knew what they had done to me and… I don’t know? Resented me? Understood that I was… rotten .”
He growls. “You’re not rotten.”
I snort. “I let you fuck me next to a dead body while your brothers watched.”
“That’s different. You’re my innocent, perfect little lamb,” he insists, pressing a kiss to my nose. “My beautiful Aiden. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
I don’t know if he means that or he just thinks he needs to say it. With Levi, things are a mystery, but it’s not necessary for me to fully comprehend his words when my soul knows what he means.
I will never be anything but perfect to him.
“There’s so much wrong with me,” I tell him, but it’s with a smile on my face as I brush my nose against his. “With you too.”
He swallows harshly. “Are you okay with that?”
He looks scared. Terrified of my answer. Maybe he thinks I’ll run again or that I’ll change my mind, but I’m fully committed now. It’s going to be him and I until the day we die. No more running. No more doubt. No more pain unless it’s given freely and tenderly.
He’s mine as much as I’m his.
And when the day does come when our souls are called to the afterlife, I hope we go together, because a life without him doesn’t seem like a life I want to live.
So am I okay with it?
“I am now.”