by Keri Lake
Six.
How could I have forgotten this face? How could I not see him behind those eyes? A gasp of nervous laughter sits trapped inside my chest, trodden on by the disbelief that I’m staring at the man I believed dead.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice breaks on the question, and lowering my hand away, I clear my throat to choke back the sob itching to escape.
A pregnant pause lingers between us, his gaze directed downward, as he tucks the bottle beneath his arm and smooths his gloves over his hands. “I’ve been dead inside. And when you’re that dead, you don’t do the things you need to do, to make things right again.” He sniffs, clenching his hands into fists with his fidgeting. “You weren’t supposed to come back.” His lips curl to a snarl, as he shakes his head. “Not to me.”
“What do you mean?”
He rolls his shoulders and looks off somewhere toward the vast desert in front of him. “The night I took off, I ran to the Juniper tree, like you said. Legion found me there.” In his profile, I catch the furrow of his brow. “They told me you were dead. That you’d been shot trying to fight a guard. So I …” He shakes his head, lips downturned. “I gave up right then. Handed myself over. Didn’t give a shit what happened to me. They could take me back to that place. Torture me. Kill me. Didn’t matter. I had nothin’ left.”
“I came for you. Saw what was left.” My mind traces back to the moment I lifted his shirt from the sand and clutched the only piece of him I had left. “I buried myself by that tree. Everything I was. And I couldn’t go back again.”
“I’m not the boy you remember, Wren.” There’s hardness to both his voice and his expression, an impenetrable shield meant to shut me out. “You were right last night, when you said I’ve become heartless. I’ve killed men in your name. In ways that no god would ever forgive.” He glides his arm across his nose and sniffs, letting his gaze fall away from mine again.
“I did this to you?”
“I did this to myself.” His jaw shifts, flexing as he grinds his teeth. “Every night I lost myself to hallucinations of your face. Every girl I save is you. Every time I go out there, I hear your voice on the wind. Your laughter. Your scent. It’s all up here,” he says, jabbing a fist to his temple. “Can’t get you out of my head. Tried to carve you out of me, but I can’t, and the blood I spill isn’t enough. It’s never enough.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“And then you come back? Why? Why are you here?”
“I’m only here because I was brought to you.”
“Brought to me. Like I deserve that. Like I ain’t on God’s shit-list for everything I’ve done.” He paces in front of me, rubbing his nape, then stops and shakes his head. “You weren’t supposed to come back to me. To this.” He throws the bottle at the brick wall beside him, shattering the glass on impact, and I flinch. “Not to me!” The anger in his voice thunders along my spine, and a watery shield covers my eyes.
“Well, I’m here. And finding out about you wasn’t exactly easy to swallow at first, either. The girls, I get it now. You save them from Legion. But I was sold. Rigs bought me. He didn’t save me.”
“If you knew the sick fucks some of those girls’ve been sold to.” His eyes sweep over me and back toward the mountains. “Rigs spared you, too. We’re no saints, Wren. Nobody saves anyone out here. And nothing’s free. Can’t all shack up with us. And they won’t survive alone out there.” He jerks his chin toward the open desert. “So we trade when we have to.”
“Then maybe it’s better if I go. Because the boy I used to know wouldn’t have traded me for anything. I know that for a fact. He’d never let anything hurt me.”
His chest rises and falls, his lips press to a hard line, and what seems like an eternity passes in the silence between us.
His eyes find me again. “I didn’t plan to let you go. And I’d never let anything hurt you. Not anything, or anyone.” Brows drawn tight, he shakes his head. “Not even me.”
“The tattoo. Can I see it? The one they put there?”
With neither a word, nor hesitation, he turns around, pushing the bunched skull mask down, as he runs his thumb over the short crop of his hairline. There above the glisten of sweat across his neck, hardly discernible beneath the cover of his hair, is the number I memorized. The one I whispered every night for years, praying to God he didn’t die in pain.
He twists back around to face me, a vulnerable tormented expression claiming his face, and my heart feels as if it’s going to explode in my chest.
When I lurch toward him, I move on instinct, colliding into his hard body. My arms wrap around his neck as I crash my lips to his. He’s stiff at first, muscles rigid, hardly moving, but vibrating with raw power, like a mountain lion poised to strike.
I kiss him harder, running my fingers across his nape, until he relents just enough, his body relaxing just a little.
He kisses me back, and his arms wrap around me. Tighter. Tighter.
The taste of him is heaven against my tongue, and his fervent kisses send me into a dizzy haze. He lifts me from the ground, as we stumble backward until his back hits the wall. He spins around, and the warm bricks of the building press into my spine.
His kiss is familiar, both a comfort and a thrill that winds my stomach as he pins me to the wall. Our breaths mingle, teeth clash, tongues dueling in a desperate bid for more. More.
He growls as he devours my lips, and I flinch at the sting of pain when he bites them.
My head tips back at the tug of my hair, as he licks my hammering pulse and carves his name into my flesh with his teeth.
“Take me somewhere, Six. Take me away before I wake up.”
When he pulls his face from my neck, his pupils are dilated, eyes riveted on my mouth, and he shakes his head.
“I’ve waited too long for you. Too long, little bird.”
Chapter 33
Arms wrapped tight around Rhys, I rest my head against his back, as we ride along the dirt road. The wind blows my hair, and I close my eyes, caught up in a moment of bliss, as if I’ve been trapped in the darkness for so long.
We pull off to the side of the road, and I lift my head from his back, staring out over a sea of yellows and oranges, dotted with the occasional spiked leaves of the yucca plants and purple blooms. In the distance, the soft slope of mountains and sand hills give the impression of a meadow in the middle of the barren land.
“It’s beautiful.”
Without a word, he climbs off the bike and lifts me from the seat, taking the lead toward a field of late spring poppies.
We take shade beneath a cluster of Joshua trees that, together, create enough of a canopy to get out of the scorching sun. I steal a moment to breathe in my surroundings, the part of the world I still love, and when I twist around, Rhys stands behind me, his hands extending and flexing into tight fists at his sides.
Something’s changed now that we’re here. I can see the shadows creeping over his eyes like old friends coming out to play. The demons settling into his thoughts.
“Why did you bring me here?” I know the answer. It’s the same reason I used to take him away to our secret place in the meadow. Away from everyone else.
“I’m not what you think I am, Wren. I never was. I wanted to tell you then, but I couldn’t.”
“What do I think you are, Rhys?”
His throat bobs with a swallow, eyes tracking me like an animal, like he’s reeling in the urge to pounce. “I was a kid when you found me. Messed up, but I never hurt anyone. Only blood I ever shed back then was my own. Everything’s different now. I do what I want out here. There’s no rules. No laws. Nothing to stop—”
“Did you bring me here to kill me, then?”
“No. I don’t know why I brought you here.” He rubs a hand down his face and across his nape. “I hear voices, sometimes. Loud, angry voices. Sometimes, louder than my own.” Both his hands stroke the top of his head, and eyes clamped closed, he stills for a moment. “You know how
fucked up that is? Crazy people hear voices.” He sneers and sets his attention back on me. “Things I’ve had to do to survive out here, you’d never forgive me for.”
“You’ve forgotten who I am, too, then.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything about you. So pure. And good.” His eye twitches as he stares down at me, his chest rising and falling with deep breaths. “I should probably take you back. It was a mistake bringing you here.”
“These voices … they tell you to do bad things?”
His jaw tics, those shadows in his eyes answering for his silence.
“That’s why you collect the skulls, right? Those voices tell you to kill. They tell you to enjoy it. They tell you that the pain will go away with every life you take. Is that it?”
The furrow in his brow deepens, but he doesn’t bother to answer.
“What are they telling you now?” I dare to ask, braving a step toward him.
He steps back. “To take.”
“Is that what you want?” Another step forward. “Is that what you need? To take from me?”
His face is stoic, hard. But beneath all the cold armor is a fragile core, fighting the demons I know he harbors inside his mind.
“It’s not taking, if I willingly give it to you, is it?” I inch closer still, only this time, he doesn’t move.
His body is a wall of rigid tension, as the cords in his arms and jaw pull so taut, they quiver. Hands balled into tight fists, he shakes his head. “I want you too much, Wren. Scares the shit outta me, how bad I want you right now. Just lookin’ at you makes my chest hurt.” His gaze refuses to meet mine, but twists with whatever unseen agony is churning in his mind, and he slams the heel of his palm against his temple. “Voices, though. They’re so goddamn loud. It’s all I hear. Like some kinda freak.”
“That’s why the others fear you. That’s why they chain you up like an animal.”
“They have to.” The torment in his eyes weighs heavy on my heart. “Sometimes, it’s too much. Too loud, and I just snap.”
“Snap how?”
“I don’t know.” He strokes his chin, eyes lost like he’s caught up in one of those blackout moments at this very moment. “Most times, I don’t even know what I’m doing. It’s like, something takes over, and I’m just along for the ride.”
“Were they good people? The ones you’ve killed?”
The corner of his lips twitches with his shrug. “What’s good anymore? We’re all sociopaths out here. Some are just more advanced.” His eyes soften with sadness. “Wish I could remember what goodness felt like, though.”
“I was never afraid of you, Six. I’m not afraid of your voices, or your demons. I know what’s inside your heart. And you don’t scare me. You never have.” As I reach out a hand, he flinches, but I reach, anyway. Guiding his face to mine, I stare up at him. “Don’t let those voices tell you there isn’t goodness in you, because I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it.”
“That boy is dead, Wren. He’s hungrier now. Starving.” His tongue sweeps across his bottom lip, as his eyes devour me. “I’m not sure I have the same control where you’re concerned.”
“You hardly reined it in then. You also told me you’d never let anyone, or anything, hurt me. Including you. And I believe you.” I push up on my tiptoes, cupping his stiff jaw, and kiss him. “That cold, hollow feeling in your chest? I feel it, too.” Eyes on his, I slide my hand down to his chest. “Something happened to your heart, Rhys. I don’t know if I can fix it. But I’m damn well going to try.”
His eyes study mine, staring past their glassy surface into the very depths of my soul. “When was the last time you were with a man, little bird?”
I’ve been with a few bastards, but only one I’d call a man. “On a blanket of lasthenia, beneath the moon.”
The twitch of his cheek tells me this pleases him. “I remember that night well.” He leans in, eyes shuttering, and kisses me so tenderly, my knees weaken, threatening to give out beneath me. “I can’t wait for you much longer.” The gruff tone of his voice bleeds desperation, which calls to some primitive craving in me to soothe him.
Gripping his vest, I yank him to my face and slant my lips over his, dragging his bottom lip through my teeth. I push his vest off his shoulders, and the leather falls to the ground behind him. The hard planes of his muscles, carved out by deep grooves, draw my palms to his chest, and the solid form of his pectorals slides beneath my skin, as I drag my hand down to his stomach, which ripples with my touch.
But there are new scars on his skin. Fresh ones that overlap the tiny white lines I’ve already seen. “Your scars …” I trace my fingers over them, taking in the twitch of his muscles that confesses he’s grown wary of touch.
As if he’s had enough, he snatches my hand, yanking it away from his body, but I catch the shaking of his hands. The tremors that vibrate past my skin, and his broken, rapid breathing. He’s worked himself up, and is trying like hell to restrain himself.
“You don’t trust my hands on you.”
“I don’t trust myself. It has nothing to do with your hands. Since you came back, it’s all I can think about.” He releases my hand and strokes his skull back and forth again. Eyes screwed shut, he curls his hands to tight fists at either side of his head, his massive arms seizing my attention. “Your hands on me.”
“Have you let anyone else touch you?”
His eyes darken, as he stares down at me, and just as it was when he was mute, I can’t read his thoughts. The return of his voice hasn’t changed the mystery of what’s buried inside his mind.
I only know that the broken boy still watches from behind his eyes. The one with bright blue eyes and horrific scars, who wakes to nightmares of pain and suffering, and fears touch. I want to cradle him in my arms, sing him lullabies and tell him I’ll never hurt him. But my heart has changed, too. It’s grown colder and more impenetrable, the hollow of it filled with more hate than love. As much as I want to believe I’m capable of pulling him out of those shadows, the truth is, I’ve been living in them myself, friending the demons of my own past. Taking from men in the same manner that they once took from me.
Except Six.
“If you don’t touch me, nothing ever will again,” I say, and glance up to see something new flicker in his expression.
Perhaps knowing. A kindred feeling. Or maybe it’s a cruel mocking of my pain.
Some of the darkness lifts, and he reaches out to me, hesitating for a moment, and thumbs the tear in my eye.
He pulls his hand from me, but I hold tight to his wrist. Our eyes battle in silence, while his muscles tighten, resisting my touch. Anger winds my determination, telling me he’s just being stubborn, but I know that’s not true. I can see it in his eyes that he wants to relieve himself of the monster that keeps others away. That he hasn’t truly been touched in a very long time because of it. I want to give him a moment of peace that he so desperately needs.
Even if my heart is just as dark and closed off, I want to steal away his pain and show him pleasure once more.
We remain in a standoff, neither one of us so much as blinking.
And he finally relents.
The tension slides out of him on a hiss between his clenched teeth, and he allows me to pull him in for a kiss. Victory swims through my veins, the tears streaming down my cheeks. He dips his head, and I feel his arms band around me, squeezing me. Tighter and tighter.
My body is hoisted up off the ground, and I hold onto him, letting him take me as he wants. A growl rumbles in his throat on a hearty groan, and I smile against his lips. This is my Six. The boy I loved, cloaked in the body of a man whose heart may have grown harder, but it’s still there. Beneath the layers of cold steel, it still beats for something.
He slips my thighs around his waist, mouth still pressed to mine, and together we fall, as he drops to his knees. The sweetness of berries and figs that I remember on his lips has given way to the smoky flavor of liquor. His taste may have changed a
bit, but the effects of his kisses haven’t. My head spins in delight, and somewhere a girlish giggle echoes from memories past.
I didn’t realize how ruined I am, how little I received from the affections of other men. No one else has ever touched my soul this way, stolen a piece of me.
My heart reaches for the tiny bit I gave to him years ago, and as if it’s been dormant all this time, it beats again. The excited rhythm pounds against my ribs, stealing my breath.
Hooking his fingers beneath the hem of my shirt, he lifts the fabric over my head, his eyes feasting on my exposed breasts, as I lay before him.
His thumbs pass over them, stroking a wild pulse of arousal that hits hard between my thighs, where an ache throbs with the need to be touched there.
His hands are heaven, and his eyes are home. I tip my head back, lost to his caress, my memories filtering in like old photographs falling into my lap.
Something twists inside my stomach, and his caresses prod my muscles to bat them away. It tells me I don’t deserve such softness and reverence, and that I should make him stop.
I don’t, though. As persuasive as those thoughts are, I won’t allow them with Six.
“I lost feeling. The things they did …” The grooves in his forehead deepen as he stares down at me. “Damaged my nerves.” He raises his hand, flexing it in front of me, and goes back to his fondling of my nipple. “I remember your face when I touched you. Just like this. You showed me how to feel again. Most people, they cower beneath my hands. They fear me. But you? You beg me for this.”
I capture one of his wrists and hold it to my face, kissing his palm. “I loved your touch. I dreamed about it, years after I lost you.”
His thumb moves across my cheek and over my lips, as his eyes study me, simmering in the bluest flames.
“What they did to you can’t be undone. But let me help you forget, just for a little while.” Cupping both sides of his face, I draw his mouth to mine for a kiss that turns fervent and excited.