Chapter 14 Raven
Raven
Ikicked off my boots as I crossed the threshold into Vin's bedroom, the door clicking shut behind me.
My heart hammered like a damn V-twin engine revving inside my chest. This was the kind of moment you don't even let yourself dream about because it's just too cruel when reality comes knocking to remind you dreams are for suckers.
Except this wasn't a dream. Vin was back from the dead—literally—and here I was, about to lay eyes on the ghost that haunted every mile I'd put between me and our past.
"Jesus," I said under my breath, taking in the room.
It was like someone had pressed pause on our life together and then hit fast-forward, landing us in some alternate universe where Vin got to keep on living without me.
The bed was big enough to fit a whole damn MC meeting, but the sheets were new, dark blue—a stark contrast to the white linen we used to mess up.
There was an old leather jacket thrown over the chair in the corner, one I didn't recognize, which meant he'd been riding without me.
A pang of betrayal twisted in my gut, stupid as it was.
My gaze drifted to the empty walls, walls that needed a female’s touch.
I’d put up photos, moments frozen in time, that I’d saved on the Internet.
A fresh scar on the hardwood floor caught my attention, near the closet.
The story behind it was a mystery, one I couldn't help but want to unravel, but not now. I wanted and needed him.
"Fuck," I exhaled, feeling the surreal weight of standing in the very place I'd thought I'd never be—in front of Vin.
The man I loved had come back from the dead, and I.
.. I was just trying to figure out how the hell to live with the ghost of him that'd kept me company all these years.
I took a step toward him, feeling like gravity was pulling me across the expanse of that room, every inch closer to Vin charging the air with electricity.
I could almost hear my heart thumping against my ribcage, a relentless drumbeat syncing with the intensity in his eyes as they met mine.
"Vin," I murmured, the name a prayer and a curse all at once.
My hand lifted, trembling not from fear, but from emotions so potent it could knock out a heavyweight.
Fingers outstretched, skin ghosting over his forearm, rough with the memory of road and wind.
The contact sent a jolt through me, a spark of relief, love, and a shard of fear for the unknown road ahead.
The warmth of his flesh, the thrum of his pulse beneath my touch—it was real. He was really there.
"Tell me." My voice barely rose above a whisper, the words laced with a quiet urgency that betrayed my need to understand, to know everything.
"How did you come back to me, Vin?" He looked at me then, those penetrating eyes that had seen too much, and I saw the flicker of something dark and deep within them. A storm waiting to break.
"It's a long story, Raven," he finally started, his voice the rumble of distant thunder, promising a downpour of truths I wasn't sure I was ready for. "Thought I was done for, you know? But fate’s got a fucked-up sense of humor."
"Try me," I shot back, steeling myself for his tale, my mind working to clear the fog of the past two hours.
"Alright." He sighed a sound that seemed to carry the weight of his past, present, and future. He shrugged. “I don’t know much about it, Rave. I woke up in Paradise Cemetery in Arizona. With nothing.” He stared at me for a long time without saying a word and then began nodding.
“Fuck. I was brought back to save you, baby.”
My breath caught and hitched in my throat as the image of him broken and fighting for life painted itself in stark colors behind my eyelids.
I felt my nails dig into my palm, the pain grounding me.
"Shit," I breathed out, the word escaping like steam from a pressure valve. "You were always too stubborn to die."
"Damn right." Vin's lips quirked up in a half-smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Took a few minutes before I could even stand. Had to relearn the basics—like some fucking toddler. Every time I wanted to give up, I thought of you, of the promise I made to myself. To come back to you."
"Vin..." I choked out, my own scars throbbing in resonance with his story. A sense of connection to this man, seared into me deeper with every word he spoke, every shared agony laid bare. Four years…
"Hey," he said softly, reaching out to catch a tear I hadn't felt slip free. "We're here now, Raven. That's what matters."
"Yeah," I agreed, voice steadying as I wiped my face with the back of my hand, the raw edges of my world starting to stitch back together with him at its center. "Yeah, we're here."
"Raven, I clawed my way back from darkness because of you," he said, his voice filled with emotion. Those words, they hit like a fist to the gut—hard and unyielding. I grappled with the notion that I had been a beacon for him, even as I'd been locked away in my own hell.
"During those years... it was like being buried alive.
" The confession slipped from me, raw and unvarnished.
I could feel the weight of the chains that had bound me, the cold whisper of isolation that had been my only companion.
I realized then just how close to insanity I was.
"I counted days at first, then seasons. Eventually, I stopped counting altogether. "
"Shit, Raven," Vin murmured, his eyes never leaving mine.
"Every single day was a test—a war against despair. But I fought, Vin. For the slim chance of breathing free air again. For the hope that maybe, just maybe, I'd find you on the other side."
"Damn, babe, you're one tough woman." His voice was thick with respect, his gaze holding mine as if trying to absorb my pain through his own haunted eyes.
"Guess we're both too stubborn to let the bastards win," I said, managing a brittle laugh that sounded more like a sob. My heart pounded, fierce and defiant, fueled by memories of survival.
We were survivors, Vin and I. Scarred, yes. Broken in places, certainly. But still standing, still fighting. Bound by a love that refused to die, even when death had come calling.
I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees as I carved out the truth of those years spent in the shadows.
The words tumbled from me, jagged and unpolished, echoing off the walls of Vin's bedroom.
It was a story etched in scars and whispered nightmares, laid bare for the man who'd haunted my dreams even as reality had turned to dust.
"Every wall I hit, every door that slammed shut, it was like the world kept telling me you were gone. But I didn't listen." My voice fractured, bearing the weight of memories too long imprisoned.
Vin's chair creaked as he shifted, the leather groaning under his muscular frame.
His fingers curled around the edge of the armrest, knuckles whitening—a silent testament to his restraint.
He was a statue carved from pain and perseverance, every line of his body etched with the marks of a life hard lived.
"Raven," he started, but I shook my head, cutting him off.
"Let me finish," I insisted, needing him to understand the depths from which I'd clawed my way back to him. "They tried to break me, Vin. But I'm here, aren't I? Still breathing, still fighting."
He nodded, the tightness in his jaw easing as if my resilience offered him some kind of solace. His eyes, those piercing orbs that seemed to see right through me, held mine with an intensity that bridged the gap of our years apart. In them, I found echoes of my own loss and determination.
"Raven," he said again, his voice soft, almost reverent. "You're the fucking bravest person I know."
The air between us grew heavy, charged with the electricity of our shared history.
Conversations faded into silence, leaving only the rhythm of our breathing and the crackle of old ghosts being laid to rest. We were two souls, tempered by fire, finding solace in the recognition of each other's trials.
I rose from my seat, drawn to him by a force stronger than gravity.
With each step, the distance between us shrank, until I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
"Raven," he breathed out, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the quiet room.
"Vin," I echoed, standing before him now, close enough to touch, to confirm that this wasn't just another dream from which I'd wake, cold and alone.
Our gazes locked, and the world fell away.
There was nothing but the space we shared, a sanctuary built from resilience and reclaimed time.
The warmth of him seeped into my skin, a promise of things unsaid but deeply felt.
And in that silence, every unspoken desire hung between us, palpable and insistent, demanding to be recognized, to be fulfilled.
I took the final step that bridged the gap between us, my heart slamming against my ribs like it was trying to break free.
For a moment, we were just two people standing too close in a room too small for all the history crashing around us.
But then I reached up, my fingers tracing the rough stubble along his jaw, and I saw the flicker in his eyes—that spark of the same wild hunger I felt burning inside me.
"Raven," Vin's voice was a whisper, thick with emotion, but I shut him up with my mouth on his.
The kiss wasn't soft or tentative. It couldn't be—not with everything that had been pent up inside us.
The years apart had built a pressure that demanded release, an urgency that was as fierce as it was desperate.
Our mouths clashed with a raw intensity that spoke of lost time and the ache of missing pieces now slotting back into place.
His lips were firm, insistent, moving against mine with a fervor that told me he was just as starved for this connection as I was.