Chapter 27
He Kisses My Scars
JESSICA
Seven Years Ago
He kisses my scars and burns away my self-doubt. I hold onto him as if I will lose him. This can’t be real. This must be a dream—the way he touches me, kisses me. This can’t be his first time. It just can’t.
He murmurs against my lips, “Five more minutes. I just want to kiss you for five more minutes.”
I nod and emit a breathy moan as his hand slides under my hoodie, trailing along the skin on my lower back. My spine stiffens when he grazes my bare skin because he touches my scars. Sliding his tongue against my own, my protests melt away.
We kiss for more than five minutes. I don’t want to stop. I love the way his hands feel against my skin, the way his silky, midnight-black hair moves between my fingers. I want to feel his skin against my palms. I slide my hands over his chest and yank his jacket over his shoulders.
“Take this off,” I whisper. He leans forward, biting down on my neck, licking and sucking the sting away. “Shadow, don’t. You’ll leave a mark.”
He chuckles. “It will fade in an hour.”
This feels too good to stop now, but I need him to. Anders will kill him. My parents will kill him.
“Not on me. It will stay for days.”
He pulls at my skin with his teeth and groans. “You taste so good. I want to taste every inch of you, Princess.” He licks my jaw.
I cover his mouth with my hands.
He pinches my side. I jump at first, gasping. His eyes fill with wanton desire. He bites my palm. Moving his way down my wrist, he kisses more of my scars.
I can’t even remember what I meant to say. “Shadow…”
“Princess…”
I groan as he pushes my sleeves back and continues.
“Take this off.” I don’t even have a chance to answer him before he pulls the hoodie over my head and throws it next to his jacket.
His lips travel back to mine, while I undo the buttons of his shirt and slide my hands over his muscular chest. Our kisses become more frantic, more urgent. It’s not enough. I want more.
He pulls me against him. “Fuck. I can feel your heat against my cock,” he moans. I feel his hardness between my legs, against my sex. He lifts his hips against me, and I moan in return. I shift my hips back and forth, rubbing against him, loving the feel of his hardness.
He lets out a shaky breath. “I need to stop, Princess.”
I trail my tongue along his neck, pulling his skin with my teeth as I venture lower.
I continue to suck on his skin, grinding into him at the same time.
He groans a little louder this time. I want more.
I start to chase the pleasure of rubbing his hardened cock against me.
I grab the back of his couch, pulling myself against him.
I run my fingers through his hair and return to his mouth.
“Fuck! Don’t stop, Princess.” He grips both of my hips to grind against him even harder. My head falls back as he drags my sports bra out of the way, exposing one of my breasts. He teases my nipple with his tongue and pulls it into his mouth, sucking harder.
I lose control, canting my hips faster. I need more. I want more.
Reading my mind, he works my nipple harder, alternating between pleasure and a little pain. Every muscle in my body starts to tremble, and my pussy throbs. When he clamps down on my nipple, ecstasy fills every fiber of my being. I grip his shoulders, digging my nails into his skin.
He grips the back of my head, tangling his fingers in my hair, and he crashes his lips against mine, releasing a low throaty growl at the same time.
I feel his canines elongate, cutting into my lower lip, but the pain only heightens the pleasure.
He releases my mouth, burying his head in the crook of my neck, holding me down on his throbbing erection.
“Holy fuck,” he murmurs between tender kisses along my collarbone. He leans back against the couch, taking me with him, cradling my head against his shoulder.
A warm, relaxing sensation overwhelms my body. His arms wrap around me as we both catch our breaths. He kisses my forehead, and his thumb gently caresses the back of my shoulder.
“Princess, are you okay? Was it too much? Did I take it too far? Fuck, I didn’t even ask if touching you was okay. I didn’t check in with you.”
I kiss his bare chest and snuggle closer, resting my forehead into the crook of his neck. “I wanted more. I didn’t want you to stop,” I admit.
He laughs, sliding his hand from my shoulder to my hip. His thumb brushes against my scars there. They don’t appear to bother him.
I know that we should probably leave, but I want to bathe in this calm feeling and stay in his arms forever. “Just five more minutes,” I whisper. “I want to stay in your arms for five more minutes.”
His lips graze my forehead, his arms squeezing me tighter. “Anything you want, Princess.”
My eyelids grow heavy. I breathe in sea salt, faint ozone and cold night air clinging to his skin. My body melts against his, and I fall asleep with his arms locked around me like a promise.
What feels like seconds later, I hear him say, “Princess, I let you sleep for as long as I could, but I have to get you home.”
I nod, not really wanting this to end.
He groans, letting his head fall back against the couch. “I still need to do your interview, and I don’t know how I’m going to keep my hands off of you.”
I lift my head up to look at him, blinking the sleep from my eyes. “Did you say interview?”
He smiles and starts to play with my hair. “I’m scheduled to do your entrance interview today. Actually, I was coming to see you on your birthday to do it then, but my plans were… diverted.”
I thought it was too late to enter the recruit program. I saw the roster on Anders’s desk; it's almost filled. I stopped asking to be in the guard for a long time now. After the whole incident with Boris, I felt I didn’t deserve to be one, nor did I want to anymore.
Shadow’s blue eyes twinkle with excitement. I don’t want to let him down or confess where my mind drifted for the past six months.
“Oh,” I manage and attempt to smile, despite my hesitation.
His warm hand slides up my back and caresses my neck before resting my forehead to his. “Tell me why you feel like you don’t deserve this.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. I see it written all over your face.”
He should know why. He was there. He saw what I did and yet not once brought it up.
I show him with my mind—memories of Boris’s hands touching me, hitting me.
I relive the feel of his teeth sinking into my skin, his whispered threats, and the lightning I tried to wield and failed and the bolt of lightning I sent straight through his heart. His lifeless body lying on the ground.
My magic worked that night, and then it didn’t. That bolt of lightning wasn’t meant to kill him. I wanted only to scare him, just like I had when I first met Luke. Since that night, so many thoughts run through my head.
What if I kill someone else—someone innocent—by accident?
I could have killed Luke. What if I hadn’t missed?
Off and on for the past six months, every time I tried to wield my magic, it works too well or doesn’t work at all.
I can’t control it, and I am so scared. I don’t know who to talk to about it.
If I talk to Anders, I would have to tell him what I did. Would he get rid of me?
Shadow slowly reaches for my wrists and pulls my hands away from my neck.
“Breathe, Princess.” I didn’t realize I was clutching at my throat.
“Princess, fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking broken that I didn’t stop to think what you were going through.
I had no idea.” He squeezes his eyes shut.
His arms wrap around me again, pulling me in closer.
“I fucked up. I should have been there with you, for you. I should have talked to you about it.”
I shake my head and close our mind link.
“I want to show you something. This might help ease some of your guilt.” He stands from the couch with me still in his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist. He pushes open a door and turns on a light before he sets me gently on my feet.
A desk sits in the center of the room still wrapped in plastic, and three chairs lean against one wall. He approaches several tall cabinets and opens one drawer, revealing a number of file folders. He sifts through, retrieves one, and sets it on the desk.
“You need to see this. I will warn you the contents in this file are not pretty, and the pictures...” He pauses. “It’s bad.”
I read the name on the file—Boris Niles.
I force myself to swallow the lump in my throat.
Do I really want to see this? How much do I really need to know about the man I killed?
Shadow wraps his arms around me. “Princess, open it. I think you need to see what kind of a monster he was.” He kisses my hair and rests his chin on the top of my head.
He doesn’t let me go until I finish reading the entire file.
Red-hot anger—no, rage—courses through my body. I wish I had known all of this before that bastard touched me. I would like to strike him with lightning again, this time with my eyes wide open.
He raped, tortured, and stalked countless girls and women until they felt like they were crazy. What kind of a monster gets to live a life without any remorse? He was an evil son of a bitch, and I felt horrible for taking his life. He felt nothing for the innocent lives he took.
Then, I remember the images I saw inside his head, all memories correlating with this file in my hand. There’s more. I know his secrets. I know what he did for the Resistance. I slam the file down on the desk and turn in Shadow’s arms.
“I want to be in the guard. I want to bring assholes like this down.”
Shadow smiles down at me. “I didn’t show you his file for you to become a vigilante.
I showed you this because it was important for you to see that he didn’t deserve your guilt or your remorse.
You were his target, and he wouldn’t have stopped if you let him live.
I should have killed him right then and there, but I didn’t want to do it in front of you.
If I hadn’t hesitated, you wouldn’t have had to live with that on your conscience. I’m so sorry, Princess.”
I lean up on my tiptoes and kiss Shadow. The heaviness sitting on my chest all these months finally evaporates. I can finally breathe.
He palms my cheek and looks me in my eyes. “I will work with you on controlling your magic. Magic and our emotions go hand in hand. It’s why sometimes it works, and other times it doesn’t. We can fix that. I’ll help you, so you’ll never feel like this again.” He kisses the tip of my nose.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything, Princess. I have nothing to hide from you.”
“Why do you have this? Why was he in the guard if you knew this about him?”
“We tried to dismiss him, but his political backing prohibited us from removing him from the program, along with Marcus and Dustin. I have this file here because this is my personal home, and if we were ever searched, no one would find it on the training grounds. My reasons may seem paranoid, but I prefer to keep our research pertaining to all potential Resistance individuals where someone can’t find them.
It’s also why I have a hard copy, instead of a digital file on a computer.
I admit I wasn’t the one who discovered this information.
Had I seen these particular reports, I would have used my own political resources to prevent him from entering into the program.
This unfortunately came into our hands a couple of months into the program, thanks to Luke, who followed his intuition about the guy, and Darwin’s knowledge of hacking into the right systems.”
I snort at the mention of Luke’s intuition.
He angles his head. “What?”
I shake my head, not wanting to talk poorly about Luke to him. My opinion of the asshat is my own. “I just can’t believe that someone managed to hide all of this information.”
“He has a powerful ally in his corner. From what I can tell, killing these women was part of his job, his training. He was raised to be an assassin.”
“Are assassins trained to rape their targets?"
“No. That, I think, was just part of who he was. He turned it into a game. For whatever reason, before he even knew you wielded magic, he chose you for sport.”
He steps back, and I instantly miss the warmth of his embrace.
“Princess, I know you felt like his death was because you lost control of your magic, but deep down, your instincts saved you. They saved me, too. I would be dead right now if you hadn’t saved me.
I’m not invincible. So, think of all the potential lives you saved and stop wasting time feeling guilty for taking the life of a man who was nothing more than a monster. ”