Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(76)

Where he would make the decision between the two.





Chapter Eighteen





“She never seemed shattered; to me, she was a breathtaking mosaic of battles she’d won.”

-Matt Baker



Becky



It was my fault. I was trying new things, forcing myself to start becoming a functioning member of society. Society I’d never belong to, but I had to exist in. I was planning on going back to work in a couple days, so I kind of had to do things like answer the door.

I don’t know who flinched first, me or him. I guessed I looked different since he last saw me, what felt like a lifetime ago. I’d lost weight, gotten a new hairstyle, and my face was devoid of anything I could describe as life, as vibrancy.

But him.

Fuck.

I barely recognized the man in front of me. He was the same, physically, I guessed. Tall—not huge, but taller than me. He was dressed in all black—jeans, motorcycle boots, tee, and leather cut. That in itself was cause for pause. Usually he was wearing blue jeans so faded they looked like they were made for him. And most of the time, apart from when he decided he needed to ramp up the badass, he was wearing some stupid tee under his cut.

It wasn’t just the lack of stupid tee that had me physically recoil. It was the lack of anything. He looked like he had somehow gained more muscle in the two months I hadn’t seen him, but he had lost everything else. His jaw was covered with substantial stubble, hiding half of his attractive face. His cheekbones seemed more angular.

But his eyes. They were haunted. Destroyed. The humor that constantly twinkled beyond them was gone.

“Fuck,” he rasped, looking over me much the same I had him.

I didn’t have time to think about shutting the door in his face, turning on my heel, and running or bursting into tears. I didn’t have time for anything because suddenly, he wasn’t on the doorstep. He was everywhere. I was in his arms.

I sank into them immediately, like the only place I had belonged. Home.

“Fuck, baby. Fuck,” he muttered before I felt him kiss my head. We didn’t say anything else. Didn’t move for what felt like an eternity. It was as if by stepping into his arms I had stepped into some sort of void in the universe where nothing existed. Not even my own thoughts.

He pulled back slightly, enough so his hands could run through my hair and his tortured eyes could meet mine.

“Different,” he whispered. “I like it.”

It was as if his words jolted me out of whatever madness had me sinking into his arms in the first place. I suddenly realized what he was doing, and I felt it. Filthy. Corrupted. Insects crawled under my skin.

I yanked myself out of his arms, and although his jaw hardened underneath his stubble, he let me.

We stared at each other once more.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered. “You can’t be here.”

He shook his head. “Here is where I should’ve been the entire time,” he replied softly. “Staunching the bleeding.”

His last words confused me for a second before I stepped back so I hit the wall. “You need to leave,” I ordered in a shaky voice.

I hate that my voice shook. That I retreated. That I was weak the moment I was faced with him.

He shook his head again, stepping forward. “No. I need to stay. For selfish reasons, like sanity. Firefly, I’ll go f*ckin’ insane if I leave right now, with the image of you like this. Beautiful. Still hauntingly f*ckin’ beautiful, but broken.” He paused, evaluating the distance between us as if he wanted to close it. Thankfully he didn’t move. “I’ll go insane if I don’t stay and help repair you. Fix you,” he muttered.

I blinked away tears. “I can’t be fixed,” I declared, my voice firm, resolute.

His fists tightened at his sides, the veins in his arms in danger of jumping from his tattooed skin with the effort I guessed it was taking not to move them. Not to touch me. I knew he wanted to. Ridiculous as it sounded, I could taste it in the air, the charge, the electricity. I knew he wanted to because I wanted him to, more than anything.

But to survive, to be able to handle this moment sober, he couldn’t touch me. I still had the memory of how dirty I felt under his touch seconds before. Even under his gaze, in his presence, I was itching to escape my own body so I didn’t have to swim in the filth anymore.

His jaw was granite as his caramel hazel eyes hardened. “You can be fixed,” he gritted out. “You will be. You f*ckin’ are. You’re standing right in front of me. Different, in a way that almost kills me, but still beautiful, still breathing, still surviving. You, right here, right now, is proof that you can be fixed. That you will be. I’ll make sure of it.”

I stood stock-still as his words hit me physically. As his eyes branded my soul. “This is not something you can badass your way into. That an alpha male attitude, some muscles, and a cut can fix. What they did….” I didn’t miss his flinch. Didn’t miss the way the air turned bitter with his fury. I managed to find a way through it, to meet his eyes. “What they did, it didn’t wound me or break me. It disfigured me. Permanently changed my core, my identity, every part of who I am. I’m not ever going to heal, be whole, be someone who is ever going to be worthy to stand beside you. I’m always going to be this… thing they turned me into. That I turned myself into. Nothing’s going to change that.”