Chapter 56
FIFTY-SIX
Levi
“I need you to do something for me.” Zephyrine turns to me as we’re walking out to the barn on the far side of the stables. Hazel sent us on a mission to see if we can find some hay to decorate the front porch with, and Zephyrine’s excited that she was invited to help with holiday preparations.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“You won’t like it, but it’s important.” There’s a worried but determined look on her face, and I feel the slither of apprehension up my spine.
“I don’t think I like the sound of that.” I eye her warily. I don’t know what she has in mind, but I've only barely gotten her back, and I'm not keen to do anything but enjoy every second I have her with me.
“But if I asked you for something, you’d do it? You did once tell me you’d do anything for me.”
“There are a few caveats, but yes.” I stop and turn my head, using the brim of my hat to keep the late fall sun out of my eyes as I try to read what she’s up to on her pretty face. “It'll be easier if you just tell me instead of dealing in hypotheticals.”
“I want you to brand me.”
“No.” I don’t even have to think about my answer. I turn on my heel and start walking again.
“Levi!” she shouts after me.
“I have no idea where you got that idea in your head.”
“You have one. Bishop has one,” she argues with me.
“How do you know Bishop has one?” I frown at the idea that he’s been encouraging her.
“He told me.”
“Did he give you this idea?”
“No. You did.”
“I did?” I stop short. “I have no damn clue when I ever said anything to encourage that, but let me be clear, that I have zero interest in marring any part of you like that. I shouldn’t have done it myself. It was a dark time in my life."
“Will you just listen, please?” She crosses her arms, a stern look on her face.
I take a deep breath, turning my head away to give myself a moment to see reason enough to let her talk. I should hear her out. It’s her life, her body. And if we’re honest, I can’t stop her from doing anything she really sets her mind to.
“Fine. Talk.” I’m still terse as I try to rein in my frustration.
“I want you to put your brand over the tattoo Corey had them put on me. I think it would be healing for me not to have to catch glimpses of it in the mirror anymore, and not to hear that angry rumble thing you do whenever you see it.”
“I—” I start to tell her I don’t do that, but she cuts me off.
“Yes, you do. You think I don’t hear you, but I do. Maybe you don’t even realize it. And I understand. I know why you do it. You love me. You’re protective of me. You wish you had a time machine. But it’s there whether we like it or not.”
“You could go to one of those tattoo removal places. Don’t they do that at the doctor’s office these days?”
“I could. But the ghost of it will still be there. It’s not a magic eraser. I’ve looked into it.”
“A brand isn’t either. It’ll still be there underneath.”
“But the tattoo will be destroyed by it, and the brand will be yours.”
I press my glasses up the bridge of my nose and shift on my feet. I still hate it, but I can see why she likes the idea. I might do the same in her shoes. Fuck, I hate when she has a point I can’t argue with. I kick the heel of my boot against a rock as I contemplate my next words.
“And we’d match. Here.” She presses her hand to my chest, where the scar of the Bull Rush Ranch brand is burned into my skin. “And more importantly, here.” She touches the spot on my stomach where she burned me in the convent.
“I don’t even think about that, you know?”
“But I do.”
“I don’t want you doing this out of guilt. You have nothing to feel guilty about. You were defending yourself.”
“Not guilt. Love.”
I let out a long, frustrated sigh, looking skyward for some sort of intervention, but getting none, I meet her eyes again. They’re full of determination, daring me to tell her no.
“If it’s what you really want…”
“It is.”
“It hurts like hell. Takes weeks to heal. No hot springs or the pool at the Avarice while you wait. The nurse we see will bitch and moan about elective injuries.”
“I’m okay with all of that.”
An hour later, we’re out in the barn, the brand heated, and her bent over one of the rails while Dakota holds her hand.
I'm not doing this like Bishop or I did, half drunk and without a damn care in the world.
We prepped her skin and I have wound care and bandages sitting and waiting at the ready, but my heart is still pounding in my fucking chest at the thought of marking her like this.
“You’re sure?” I ask her again.
“I’m sure.”
“Fuck…” I curse under my breath and grab the brand.
I line it up with her tattoo and press it to her skin, closing my eyes as she lets out a blood-curdling whimper of pain and curses with every single four-letter word in her vocabulary.
It only lasts a brief moment, and I toss it back into the fire, but tears come to my eyes all the same to hear her cry out like that.
“Oh fuck, that hurts like a son of bitch!” She stands and dances around, wincing and laughing as she squeezes Dakota’s hand.
“Um, I wish I had half that kind of courage. That was hardcore.” Dakota and Zeph exchange a mutual grin.
She looks at me then, and seeing the tears in my eyes, her smile falters. She throws her arms wide and closes the gap, wrapping me up and squeezing me.
“Thank you. I know that wasn’t easy, but I love you for doing it.”
“Let’s just hope it heals okay. Let me see.” I make her turn around, and I grimace at the sight of it.
“Did it do the job? On the tattoo, I mean?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think it did.” That much was evident already, and Dakota nods along, reassuring Zephyrine that her makeshift tattoo removal has gone to plan. “We’ll have to check as it heals. Let’s get you bandaged up.” I make her sit still while I perform my ministrations.
“Do you think I could get Grant to do this?” Dakota looks at me.
“I don’t think he’d let you do this in a million fucking years. He’ll kill me for giving you the idea.”
“Fine.” Dakota lets out a huff of frustration. “But it’s sexy. You two have matching brands on each other. That’s commitment.”
“Right?” Zephyrine agrees with Dakota. “You’d think he’d be more excited about the fact that I want him forever.”
“I’m plenty fucking excited about forever, sweetheart.
But I already knew that. I didn’t need a brand to prove it to me.
I just have to look into those pretty blues.
” I spin her around, and she grins up at me, the hint of a blush on her cheeks that I’m saying all this in front of Dakota.
“See, just like this. The way you look at me?
I can see forever right there in your eyes.
You've been looking at me like that since the night at the lake.”
“And when did you know it was forever?” she asks, and I grin at the fact that she doesn’t argue with me.
“When I jumped in after you. When you burned me. When you kissed me that day in the woods. Just now, when you trusted me to do this. It wasn’t just once, sweetheart. It’s been every single day since I met you.”