Chapter Twenty-Four
Amelia
D amien pulls into a run-down motel on the drive back. It looks abandoned, falling apart even. I think he wants us to rest a little before the long drive home.
The receptionist freezes when she sees us approaching. Her eyes flick to me, noting that I look absolutely battered. I can see it in her face: she’s deciding whether or not to call the cops. Any sane person would. But before she can, Damien slaps a wad of cash onto the desk. Big, thick bills that make her swallow her conscience. She slides over a key without another word, her gaze pinned to the counter. I know what she’s thinking.
And she’d be right. I was kidnapped. Hurt. Tortured.
But not by the man standing beside me.
Never by the man standing beside me.
I shift on my feet, the raw skin burning with every step. Damien notices immediately and sweeps me into his arms. My body melts against him, and I breathe him in. Gunpowder. Smoke. Blood. Rage. Not even a trace of the scent that used to cling to him. He’s nothing but war now. A war he waged for me.
The door to our room creaks open, and it’s dimly lit. We step inside. Just the two of us. A woman who’s survived Hell. And the man who burned it to the ground for her.
Damien kneels at my feet, and something inside me cracks. He’s a beast, a demon, the most terrifying man I’ve ever met, but he kneels. For me.
I don’t know who in that village stripped me of my shoes, but it doesn’t matter. They’re dead now. All of them. He lifts my foot, his hands shaking. He stares at the blisters with a haunted, anguished look on his face. And then he presses his lips to my feet, kissing them like he can take the pain into himself. He’s breaking, unraveling, falling apart right in front of me.
It’s not hygienic. It’s reckless. But I don’t tell him to stop. Because I know he’s barely holding on, and I’d give him anything he needs at this moment. He’s just as traumatized as me.
He brushes the hem of my dress and pulls it over my head. It leaves me in nothing but my bra and underwear. He carries me to the bathroom and sets me on the sink, his eyes frantically scanning every inch of me. His whole body is tight with rage. His eyes are crazed. There’s no other term for it. Absolutely unhinged.
I glance down at myself, even though I don’t need to. I feel every bruise, every burn. My feet are blistered, had he come any later, they would have been charred. The flames only licked at them because he saved me. He came just in time.
My ribs are purple. The rocks they threw gravitated toward them more than anything else, but I don’t think they’re broken. Just bruised. My stomach is a sick blend of green, blue, and yellow, the colors of a dead thing rotting, thanks to the punch that now-dead man landed on me.
My hair is tangled, my scalp raw from where they dragged me. There’s a wound above my eyebrow, and dried blood clings to the side of my face. And then there’s my skin, as red as a lobster courtesy of my mother.
My mother.
It only just registers.
She’s dead.
And I don’t feel anything.
Before today, I would have mourned. But from the first slap, from her words, from her choosing a bunch of stupid stories over her own daughter, she was just like every single other person in that village to me.
I’m pulled from my thoughts by his breathing. It’s getting worse, harsher, quicker. He’s hyperventilating. Murder rolls off him.
When he finally speaks, his voice is hollow. “I want to go back.”
“What?”
“I want to go back.” His jaw flexes. His throat bobs. “I want to bring them back. I want to make them breathe again, just so I can kill them all over.”
I should be horrified, tell him to calm down, tell him he’s not thinking straight. But I don’t. Because his words warm my heart.
This man has successfully dragged me into the filth with him, into the darkness, into evil. I’m as much of a villain as he is. But being a villain doesn’t feel too bad with him by my side. I’m elbows deep in sin, and I don’t ever want to leave.
His heart pounds against my hands.
“It’s done,” I whisper. “It’s over.”
“No.” He shakes his head violently. “No one marks you but me.” His trembling hands trace my skin. “You’re mine. Your body, your skin, all mine.” His forehead drops to my thigh. “And I let them touch you.”
I caress his hair, trying to soothe the storm raging inside him. “You came,” I murmur. “That’s all that matters.”
“Not soon enough,” he chokes out. “Not before they put their fucking hands on you. Not before they hurt you. I should’ve killed them before they even thought about it.”
I tug on his hair, pulling his head back so I can see his face. His eyes are wild, and he looks pale.
I smile, just barely. “And what would you have done, hmm? Killed the whole village the moment I was born?”
His lips part, and he doesn’t answer.
Because he’s thinking about it.
My man is absolutely evil, a psycho, but he’s mine.
He lowers himself further, pressing his lips to my feet again. I twitch at the contact, the blisters tender, but he doesn’t stop. He kisses over every burn, every raw spot, and the heat of his mouth sears me more than the fire ever could.
He presses a kiss to my shin. My knee. My thigh.
My ribs, the bruises there.
My stomach, the ugly green and blue of it.
Every single inch of skin they marked, he reclaims.
I bite down on my lip, eyes stinging. “My skin won’t be smooth anymore,” I mumble. “Would you mind?”
His fingers grip my jaw, tilting my head back roughly, forcing my eyes to stay on his. His pupils are blown wide, his expression unreadable. His lips hover over mine, close enough that I feel the heat of his breath.
“Mind?” His voice is lethal, low and sharp. He thumbs over the dried blood on my cheek. “Your body is mine. Your scars are mine. Every single mark they left on you belongs to me now. You are beautiful, and you will always be beautiful.” He kisses down my neck, over the angry red skin my mother left behind. “And if you ever say something like that again, I swear I’ll make you look at yourself in every mirror until you see what I see.”
I believe him, and my insecurity dies the second it came up.
“I should’ve taken you to a hospital,” he rasps. “I should be taking you now, but I can’t. I fucking can’t.”
I feel his desperation. His self-loathing.
“I’d shoot them,” he whispers. “I’d shoot whoever even looked at you. I’m barely holding on to my sanity, little flower.”
At the mention of the hospital, something in me seizes.
“No,” I breathe. “Please.” I’m pleading instantly. “I just want it to be the two of us for a while. Just us. Please.”
I’m terrified. What if someone snatches me back up? The only person I trust right now is Damien.
“Are you okay?”
I nod, curling closer into him. “I’m okay. I just can’t trust anyone but you right now. I don’t want anyone touching me but you for a while.” I sound weak, but I don’t care.
“I won’t let anyone near you,” he vows. “Not now. Not ever.”
He leads me to the shower but hesitates. I know he’s overthinking everything he does, making sure it doesn’t hurt me. He can never hurt me. Sure, he scares the shit out of me sometimes. Sure, the way he loves is unconventional, but there is no doubt in my mind that this man loves me. So, I raise my arms in surrender, giving him permission to do anything he wants to me.
He unclasps my bra, and it slips down my arms, falling to the tile floor. My panties are off next.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he breathes against my skin.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” he snaps. “I let them—” He cuts himself off with a sharp inhale. “I should’ve locked you away so no one could hurt you. So that you would always be mine.”
“I’m still yours.”
“Damn right you are.” I hear him mutter under his breath before he starts the shower.
I want to laugh at his words, at his possessiveness, but the water stings.
A sharp burn against my raw skin, my blistered feet. I flinch, and the pressure behind my eyeballs increases. The pain makes me sway a little, but Damien is right there, supporting me completely.
“I know, little flower,” he murmurs. “I know. Just hold on.”
He’s careful, slow as he washes me, untangling the knots in my hair, soothing my aching scalp. He drags the washcloth over me with such gentleness that it’s just like a whisper.
No one has ever treated me like this.
Like I’m something precious.
He wraps the motel robe around me before sitting me on the bed.
He grabs the first aid kit and kneels in front of me once again, disinfecting and bandaging my wounds with such focus it’s like I am the center of his universe. And maybe I am.
“I love you so much.” He confesses.
A tear slips down my cheek. “The whole time they were hurting me… when I thought I was dying…” I choke out a breath. “My only regret was not telling you. I love you, Damien.”
“I can’t forgive myself,” he murmurs.
“Then let me forgive you.”
I see the sheer obsession in his icy blue eyes.
He’s drowning in me. And he doesn’t want to be saved.