Fractured Promises (Reapers Reign, #2)

by Maree, Aleisha

  She was graceful, like a butterfly caught in the Irish winds. She flew through the air with more poise than any fighter I’ve ever seen, so fucking alluring but deadly at the same time. If I thought I wanted her before, this was something else. I bloody needed her, but I still couldn’t have her.

  “I can’t give you what you need, Blue, but I sure as fuck can listen. I tell you now; I got you. Whatever is coming, I'll have your fucking back, cause as fucked up as I am, I won’t let another woman hurt again... not while I’m around; this is family, this place. Jimmy took me in from nothing, from a hell. I was living in a place that took every fiber of your being out of you and smacked you in the face. Jail is a fucked-up place to be; it turns you into me! I owe your dad. He’s seen it, seen me. I’ll be in debt to him forever so keeping his princess safe and even entertained,” I wink at her, “I’m in balls deep with fist flying.”

  Blue

  Looking deep into his cocky gray eyes, I see the hint of need flick through them. In that small second, I see his soul and his need and want for a woman’s touch.

  Not even thinking, I spring to my feet so that I can straddle him, pulling him into a neck lock. I flick myself under his back and hold on tight, arms locked, wrapped tight around his neck. I bring my mouth up to his ear, assaulted by his scent as I do so. “Gentle, am I? Knox, you didn’t think of how gentle I was when you fucked me in the shower last week and just walked the fuck away like I was nothing like I didn’t matter. I don’t need your reassurances that you will have my back, baby cakes, I fought them once and won. I’ll fucking do it again this time I’ll make fucking sure they can’t come back a second time. Last time I was weak couldn’t finish the job. I started this, and this time I’m a fuck load stronger.”

  Knox

  Scooping my hand and arm around her back in one swift movement, I pull her up and over me, so that she is on my chest. I snake my arms around her, clinging to her tightly. Twisting my body around, I pin her beneath me as I pull her hands up over her head. I allow my weight to rest on her hips, holding her in place as I graze my lips across her plump lips up to her ear.

  “Just below the surface, sitting there, beneath the shadows, is a kind of dark that even the strongest can't withstand, baby. You’re lucky, they say I sold my soul to the Devil to be how I am now. To feed the demon that lives in me, truth be told I am the fucking Devil, that demon works for me, so when I say I got you, I fucking mean I got you.” Leaning back, I look deep into her eyes that look so much like Angel’s.

  “You know what, baby? The other day I felt something so fucking familiar that it shook my core, hit the depths of my soulless body. It made me feel something that I had lost once before. It scared the fucking shit out of me. I warned you, doll, that I don’t do nice; I’m not capable of it. I do raw and unforgiving. I had to leave, escape... because, in your eyes, I see someone I once had, and when I touch you I feel it, her, an angel, and when I kiss you, well baby, I fucking know that taste. You see, I just couldn’t deal, baby.”

  Looking into her eyes at that moment, it all makes sense to me. Those eyes hold me, pull me into a trance. She’s like the fucking devil dressed in angel wings. What do I do? She’s a hot ass fire burning through my soul, melting the ice that has kept me frozen for so long. God, I need to put her out.

  Jumping to my feet, I stalk over to the cage and slam my fists into it. I run my knuckles down the cage slowly before pulling one hand up so that I can fist it into my hair. “FUCK!” I grit out through clenched teeth. I swing down and rip the bottle of Jack Daniels from beside her. I pull it up to my lips, taking a long pull. I allow it to snake down my throat, leaving a fiery dance in its wake. I search her eyes, her body for something, anything to change the need to rip her clothes off and fuck her that hard and fast that her brains will leak out of her ears and onto the cage floor.

  “Do you know what it’s like, Blue- James, to be tortured by your own vicious mind? I’ll kill you, darling, if I allow you to get close ‘cos baby, I’m already fucking dead. And everything thing good that I touch gets hurt and meets death.” Razing my head up to the ceiling closing my eyes a shiver runs out over my body leaving tiny goosebumps over my bare arms as her sweet Irish voice sounds out around us dancing in the air between us pulling me in.

  Chapter Seven

  Blue

  “I have nothing left to live for, nothing left to love, to pull me and out of the abyss of my dark existence. For you see, Knox, I’m reaping the consequences of evil deeds sown in a previous existence, do you wanna come on in and keep the reaper company?” grazing my eyes over his stiff body, I rise to my feet, walking on tiptoes so quietly that he doesn’t even notice my approach. I run my fingertip over his collarbone and down his spine placing my lips on the back of his shoulder. His smell and warmth capture me and, in that pure split second, I feel safe like I may have fucking found solace and home. But then just like that he pulls back and is harsh like I should be scared of him or some shit.

  “I think not darling; I can’t be someone I’m not. You’re a lie of my past and you will see that sooner or later I can’t get next to you to have them eyes staring back at me. It’s like a ghost meeting life, molding her into you.” Bending down he places the bottle between my legs pushing his lips to my forehead. He turns from me and walks away just like that. He walks away like I’m not a fractured mess in front him. Lost in my anger I hear him speak out to me and the disappointment I can hear in his voice as he pushes it out breaks me a little.

  “I meant it, baby, I got your back, but this, right here, I can’t fucking do. I can't do this. I feel the electric current our bodies have, I do, and you are my kind of nice right up to the ally of crazy I need, but I’ll hurt you. And you know what, Blue? To be honest, you’re the type of girl I don’t want to hurt.” Walking away I feel her eyes burning into my back sending wildfire out over me and making me fucking feel the sweet sensation of wanting for the first time in a long time.

  “I’ve come a long way from nights filled with Whiskey and cocaine, Knox. Numbing the pain is what I know best, I’ve lived in some dark corners of the mind, I’ve searched for my soul at the bottom of a drug-filled abyss, I’ve been beaten, drugged, used, abused... all for someone else’s gain, greed and a need to be superior, to thrust them closer to the apex of hierarchy. I paved my own road to Hell, Knox, covered it in flecks of fucking gold to light my way back up. I know all about hard work, rebuilding a life, taping back together a heart, searching for a soul lost to the fiery depths of Hell. I’m here, I’m me, and I’m fucking present.” With sobs racking my body a fucking weak sign that I’m just fucked, I look up from the floor, the bottle in my hands. I take a sip from it as I stare at this dark beast, then I spit the rest out through my clenched teeth.

  “I’m running from an evil I don’t even know how to keep safe from. When they find me, and they will, I don’t know what I’ll fucking do, so you see, the great Knox Assassin Ambrose, I’m already dead. Drowning alone living in the dark with just the fireflies from the fires of Hell to keep me company.”

  Tears streaming down my face as I reach my now shaking hand out to him, to the six-foot beast standing at the edge of what looks to be my safety net. “Please stay with me, please don’t let me fall. I can’t keep getting pulled under; I’m drowning slowly finding it harder to bob up for air. I’m so tired of feeling lost, of being alone, you and I have a lot in common. We both share the want, the need, to breathe, to find the light back to the loves that have our hearts. I will tear the whole world down before I allow them to make me the drugged filled vessel of my past. Their very own Private Dancer. I will bury the sunlight to love in the dark if it keeps them from taking me.” Pushing my fingers closer to his he reaches out to me, the tips of our fingers not quite touching, yet, we are sucked into an alluring sensation that I have never felt before. Transfixed at this moment, shocked that a fractured soul like mine could feel something as intense as what just happened between us right now.

&nb
sp; He steps into my space, pulling me up and into him, taking what air was left in me away as his arms envelope me. Taking all that I feel and pulling it into his body I’m strong but not this strong. I feel like I can break and he will piece me back together without even a second thought.

  He whispers into my hair and his words send chills to break out over my body. My soul aches. “When an angel falls at my feet with broken wings, I can’t leave them there. I will pick you up. I will carry you, I’ll fight beside you in the dark. I will stand with you, but please know that this is not going to be easy. I don’t know if I can give you what you need, what you long for, the man you want. I can’t be the man you deserve to love you. He doesn’t live in me yet. Be patient, this will hurt and it's going to sting. I walk a dark-ass road with demons living on my back. They are vile, they kill anything good that comes near. I fall apart each night chasing a ghost that won’t come to me.”

  Holding on tight to him, I allow the sobs to come and rake out through my body and into him. I need this and so does he. We both need to break. His fingers find my hair and push it back from my face. I take a deep breath in as he takes the bottle of Jack from my fingers and downs it in one fluid movement. I hear it slide down his body as he settles the empty bottle on the cage mat. His steps take us backwards and my heart spikes as he snakes his arms around my torso slowly, and seductively, he lowers us both to the mat. His back leans up against the cage wall as he scoops me into his arms, allowing my tired body to wrap around his strong, thick build. His chin rests on top of my head as my arms snake around his back. I run my fingertips over his back, mirroring the movement of his fingers on my own. The feeling takes me... the feeling of longing washes over me as a shudder escapes. His voice vibrates into my chest as he speaks.

  “Use me to escape, Blue, use me to take the pain. I'll shelter you the best I can. I hear the voices of your demons, I see them. I’ll fight them with you but I can’t love you the way your soul desires and your mind needs. Sleep now, baby, for tomorrow's dawn may just be a little too dark.” His words hurt and I’m unsure why. Then I feel the sting of his rejection hitting the back of my throat; I knew this man was hard and harsh. But he doesn't need to be after I opened up to him, he needs to know just how it is to have lived in my head and in the dungeon I came from where someone I thought loved me, but instead, hated me with more passion.

  “Knox, how did I ever give someone the power to fuck me up this bad?” I ask him, like he has the fucking answers. “Right there, in front of me, is all this darkness. I can’t ever seem to see past it, I always just see black.” My voice breaks; it angers me. He says he will help, but in the same breath, he turns me away. His fingers move from my back to my sides running up and then down towards my thighs settling back into him I just tell him how it is. “There is no doubt in my mind he will come. They all will, come high or hell water, a fucking war is coming.”

  He takes in a deep breath, rising me slightly in his arms. The movement brings a small comfort as I feel the vibrations of his voice through his throat against my hair.

  “Well let them. I told you I fucking got you and I do. We have both always seemed to protect ourselves with silence, and I guess we still do. But now I think it’s time to get loud baby.”

  I know he's right. We both are the same but, yet, so different. Both on different scales of fucked up. Enough thinking, tonight I’m tired. I pull my body deeper into him, longing to escape inside his body even just for a small while, forgetting about the shit I have in my life and the demon chasing my tail.

  Knox

  My skin burns at her touch yet it's cool at the same time. Maybe I could do this. Allowing my thoughts to wander and just letting my body hold this vulnerable and scarred woman in my arms to give her a small sense of safety, even if for just a moment. A smile seeps out over my stone-cold features as the feelings of the past come back into my mind. Shuddering I pull deep into myself, this Irish beauty, laying in my fucking arms, has the Assassin Knox Fucking Ambrose, being considerate to her tiny frame and it's taking all my strength not to fuck the pain from her eyes. Her small, broken voice washes out over us both as I let my mind travel and my dick twitch.

  “I’ll keep you together. I’ll be your forever, the one you seek the love you need. I’ll be your heaven, Knox, and you can be my hell.” Her words that I’m sure weren’t meant for me to hear, hit my chest like a ton of bricks. Maybe she is the saving grace, the help this fractured body of mine needs. A body that’s just surviving on promises made but never kept. I’ll let her bury me alive if it meant she could be the angel my soul seeks; if it meant she could feed on me and I’ll break to keep her whole. She has me. Her smell is pulling me further down deeper into the lust I have longed for since forever.

  The longer I allow my body to stay here, laying with her wrapped tightly around me like she’s holding on for dear life, got me thinking, wondering what the fuck to do. I thought love wasn’t meant for me, like I was cursed, then just like that, there was this girl who ended up being my girl. I fall for her fucking hard, too hard to the point it hurt. Then just like that the end, a grave is all I have. I never saw it coming. But then just like a straight southpaw to the jaw she was there Miss Blue-James, ripped jeans, flowy Boho hair, her trademark flannel shirt with hot as fuck black combat boots, she oozed rock goddess. Her eyes were like deep moss green pools that you could drown in, her touch was sinful. It made you crave it like fire licking its flames, her body was any man’s wild addiction – once you tasted it you wanted more. She was nothing like what I had lost, but in a funny way she was. She was everything I craved. Floating in and out of my mind, possessing my senses. I could smell her and see her everywhere.

  I hated that one woman could bring me to my knees.

  Whenever she was near all I wanted to do was take her hard and leave her as I do to the rest, but she makes me weak, her touch is like my kryptonite. The tables had turned. It was too late. Fuck. I may have already fallen for the sassy goddess and didn’t know it. I won’t let a woman break me because with love comes pain. I loved once, loved hard, a love that got taken away one foolish night. I lost it all in a blink of an eye and spent two long years paying hard for it and, for the rest of my life, it will haunt me and lace my dreams in the dark of the night. My heart, it's frozen, not even the tantalizing Blue-James can unfreeze this heart of mine even if her touch is the fire my demon seeks. I will watch her back though, I said I would. What could she be running from? What could haunt her so much that, even though she is wrapped in my arms, she is shaking so much in her sleep, whimpered tears escaping her eyes, staining my sweats?

  Running my thumb over her temple, I would have loved nothing more than to look inside that mind of hers, I need to know what battle I’m going up against. Whipping my phone out of my pocket, I punch in the number of a guy I know can help. He has his ear in all the goings on around here and afar. He knows this girl inside and out.

  ME- Hey brother, Knox here. I got something I need a little help with. Can we meet up?

  BRAY- Sure brother, I’m out right now on a run, say meet tomorrow tonight at the club?

  ME- Sweet sounds mint. What time’s good for you?

  BRAY- Got church at 6 pm, come after that bring that little brother of yours, we’re having a bonfire and cookout. I see him watching my baby sister maybe he can make her smile.

  ME- Ha I’ll try. Kash is not one for gatherings you know.

  BRAY- Yeah eh sometimes I wonder if you are twins at all.

  Me- You and me both. If we didn’t look identical I would question it. See you later brother.

  Pushing my phone back into my pocket, I settled back to watch this beauty sleep. She twists and turns in what looks like tormented dreams. What could have such a strong woman, so fucking scared that her body shudders out in pain, even though her eyes are slammed shut, at times mumbling and sweating? Looking over her delicate features I can see the telltale signs of tiny scars from hand on hand combat. I slip my fingertip ove
r a scar that sits just above her eyebrow and snaking down around the edge of her eye, stopping just before her cheekbone. A tear slips from the corner of the eye, touching my fingertip. The warm, tiny drop is turning cold at my touch. My brain starts to jump from one evil thought to another as I try to piece together the conversations I have heard since she has come back here to Kingdom.

  Chapter Eight

  Knox

  As dawn rose, I watched it dance over her features, drawing my finger over the patterns it made over her face. Opening my mouth, I allow the words to wrap around her sleeping body. ,. “Staying, letting you in and allowing you to touch me, now that’s hard. That’s a pain I won’t allow back in.” I slipped out, slowly placing her down before covering her tiny frame with my hoodie. Walking away now that’s easy. I needed to find answers; Angel will be my first stop. Looking back, I wonder if I could love her the way she needs or if I should push her away, get protection for her, and leave. I’m no good I have poison in my veins and the devil in my blood.

  Waking to the emptiness, a cold space he has left behind. I see him slipping out of the cage. Pushing myself onto my forearms, clearing my throat, I call out after him, “Knox, love me or hate me but I stand alone. I always have. I’m not ashamed. I’m a living nightmare, I’m not an angel by no means and I ain’t a saint. Oh, and baby? My demons may just fall in love with your devil. So, call upon my monsters and see just how much of a nightmare I can be.”