Echo

  Running my hand around the back of her neck and up into her hair, my fingers graze over the scab that remains from when I pulled her hair out. I stop and she turns her head in shame away from me.

  “Look at me.”

  And when she does, I cup her face once again and swallow against the emotional knot in my throat, saying, “You’re safe with me,” and then move her head to rest against my chest, banding my arms around her.

  SHAME AND EMBARRASSMENT only exist in things you value. I feel none of that as Lachlan drives us back to Galashiels. I know Declan assumes I’m feeling that way after finding me naked, raped, and covered in Richard’s blood from where I bit his dick, but I don’t. My body trembles and quakes in his arms as he holds me, but I tremble from fear. Declan told me everything I’ve been longing to hear, but who’s to say I can trust him? Who’s to say this won’t fail like everything else?

  Life has taught me that heartache is inevitable, proving over and over that dreams are simply that—dreams. Imaginative figments of our subconscious. Why am I to believe this is anything different? I certainly don’t deserve it.

  So here I sit with two options: die or trust.

  Death seems the safest choice, but I’m also not ready to let go of what I’m starting to get back. Declan’s like my heroin; I get one small taste, and I’m stuck, feening for more. But I’m terrified of losing it, knowing I can’t survive without him—I don’t want to survive without him. So if this is undoubtedly doomed, I’d be smart to just end this all now.

  Maybe my true home doesn’t really exist in the hills of Scotland, but instead, in the presence of all that was and is no more. They say death is the ultimate paradise, and the idea of being back with my father and Pike is beyond tempting. But I can’t deny how good Declan’s hands feel on me right now. Holding me and stroking my back. He smells like he always has, and I find comfort in the spicy notes of his cologne the same way I used to find comfort in Pike’s clove cigarettes.

  So as the uncertainty wracks my body in unquestionable fear, I hold on tightly to the one thing I fear the most—Declan. He’s the one who holds all the power here. He could easily destroy me or make all my dreams come true, but in order for me to find out which, I have to let go of my control, something I’ve never done before. It terrifies me to hand all the parts of me over to him and trust that he’ll take care of them.

  For now, I selfishly take the affection he’s offering me and nuzzle my head more deeply against his chest so that I can hear every sound his heart is making. Allowing its rapid beats to sing to me, I cling more tightly to him. The closer I get, the more senses I open up to him, the more I let the fear consume me. All I want is comfort, but I’m too scared of the pain I’ll have to endure when it’s gone—and it will, one day, be gone.

  When we arrive at Brunswickhill, Declan helps me out of the SUV as I wince in pain. The long drive back gave my body time to dissipate the adrenaline, and now my muscles and bones scream angrily at me, causing me to hunch over. Bracing my hand on Declan’s arm to steady myself, he moves to pick me up and carries me inside.

  Neither of us speaks as he takes me up the stairs, but instead of going into the guest room, he carries me into his. He sets me down on the edge of his bathtub, and I watch him as he wets a washcloth. When he kneels in front of me, he begins wiping my face, and my eyes focus on the terrycloth as it turns from white to pink to red, collecting Richard’s blood.

  I’m a tomb, sitting in the palace, observing. I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

  So I sit.

  Maybe my body’s in shock.

  Or maybe it’s just numbing itself for departure.

  There’s no feeling, only sounds as Declan moves about, tending to me. He holds out a toothbrush, but my hand won’t move to take it.

  “Open,” he gently requests, and I do.

  Mint touches my tongue as he brushes my teeth, but it doesn’t taste right. And when I look up at Declan, he doesn’t look right. Sounds don’t sound right, as everything begins to vacuum itself into a tunnel of fog. And now, my chest doesn’t feel right. Pins prick along my body at the same time my eyes swim out of focus.

  “Are you okay?” Declan’s lips ask, but his voice is muted and a million miles away as I sway.

  My brain tells my mouth to speak, but the wires don’t connect the message as Declan’s face morphs into a concoction of colored specks.

  And then he’s gone.

  Strong hands press through the pins; one on my chest, and the other on my back, lowering my body down.

  “Drop your head,” he instructs.

  I reach out for him when I let my head fall, and his hands quickly move to mine, and I latch on to him. Everything’s disconnected, floating in an abyss, causing my pulse to pick up in a panic.

  “I’m here. I’ve got you. Just close your eyes and take deep breaths.”

  My tongue is completely numb as I attempt to finally speak, but my words only slur when I say, “I feel sick.”

  “It’s okay. Just focus on breathing.”

  Soon, I feel the heat of my blood flow, warming my insides, and when my vision comes into focus, I move slowly to sit up.

  “Better?”

  I nod.

  “Let me get you some water,” he says before going to fill a glass from the faucet. “Here.”

  I take a few sips, and Declan turns the water on in the shower. He undresses, and I can’t peel my eyes away from him as I watch. Every part of him is smooth and cut in deep, muscular lines. Walking over, he takes the glass from me, and helps me stand up.

  With my hands gripped to his shoulders to steady myself, he begins unbuttoning the shirt he put on me. I let go of him, letting the shirt fall to the floor along with my other top and bra that Richard cut with his knife. My body is sore as I help him remove my pants, and he then leads me to the shower.

  Hot water rains down on me, washing away exterior grime. If only I could turn myself inside out, I’d do anything to cleanse the grime from inside of me, but I can’t. And I wonder if that rot will always remain.

  Declan’s fingers run along the open wound on my cheek where Richard dug his knife in, and I hiss against the sting.

  “Sorry,” he whispers, and as I look up into his harrowed eyes, I’m overtaken with guilt, and it becomes too much to hold on to.

  Heated tears slip out, merging with the heated water as I let my emotions roll down my cheeks. Declan sees it coming out of me, takes my head in his strong hands, and presses the side of my face tightly against his chest. I curl my arms between our bodies and cuddle into him.

  As we stand here under the water, naked and boundless, exposed and vulnerable, I feel the faint line-fracture begin to split. It’s a sharp razor, slicing a jagged line through the scar tissue of my deepest pain. A part of me is terrified, but another part of me is ready to end the war inside. But I’m not even given a choice when I feel it taking a life of its own, shredding the fibers of the walls I’ve spent my whole life erecting.

  “It’s okay,” I hear Pike whisper. “If you shatter, he’ll put you back together.”

  His voice, his words, they allow the severing to happen, and I rip open.

  Tremors quake through me and Declan feels it, banding his arms around me. And when he speaks his next words, “I’ve got you, darling. If you shatter, I’ll put you back together,” I bleed it all out.

  Dropping to the floor of the shower with me, he tucks me in his arms, and for the first time ever, I cry for everything I’ve suffered through—I really cry. It’s ugly and messy, screaming and sobbing, bawling harder in an attempt to drain all the misery out of me. Salt burns, sadness scathes, memories devastate, but somehow, his hands alleviate.

  I’m tired of being steely and callous. I’m tired of pretending and always fighting against my own skeletons. I’m tired of the uncertainty and hatred that drives the tenebrific evil in me. My wish is that his arms hold the magic to intenerate my heart—to make me good—to make me worthy—to make me lov
able. But I doubt any man’s arms are that powerful, and that doubt adds more fuel to my fear of Declan.

  So I cry for fear as well.

  Because I’m scared.

  I’m so scared.

  It’s always been there though—the unease, the worriment. It’s lain dormant inside of me since I was five years old, coming to life every now and then, but Pike taught me how to quickly silence it in order to survive. The dormancy is gone now. It’s a live wire of unfiltered anguish that pours out of me and into the arms of my prince on earth while my other prince exists only in the nirvana I’ve yet to become a part of.

  Warm breath feathers over my ear with a tender, “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s me,” I blurt out through the unwavering tears, lifting my head to look into his eyes that own responsibility for things he was never responsible for. “I’m the cause of everything, not you. It was all me.”

  “You were just a kid. You didn’t deserve what happened to you.”

  With his words, I reach out to his chest and run my fingers along the two bullet wounds that mark my deceit and give him my words, “And you didn’t deserve this.”

  His hand covers mine, pressing my palm against his scars, saying, “I did. Because without it, I would’ve never found the truth in you.”

  “But my truth is so ugly.”

  “Like I said before, the truest part of a person is always the ugliest. But I’m ugly too, so you’re not alone.”

  As the water cascades over us, I feel weighted down in guilt for what I’ve put this man through. Because none of it mattered when all I truly cared about was simply him.

  “Tell me how to make you forgive me. I know I’m not worthy of your forgiveness, but I want it.”

  “I wish I knew, but I don’t,” he tells me. “We’re broken people, Elizabeth. You can’t expect me to not have my issues, because I have thousands of them. But just because I hold a hate for you doesn’t take away from the love I have for you.”

  His words might not make sense to most people, but for me they do. I just have to choose whether or not to risk handing myself over to him.

  “Come here,” he says as he stands to help me up.

  I take a seat on the built-in slate bench, and allow him to wash me as I sit here, drained to depletion. Closing my eyes, I relax into his touch while he washes my hair and cleans my body. But it’s when he opens my legs and curses under his breath that I open my eyes and tense up.

  “What?” I ask, looking down at him as he stares in horror between my thighs.

  Shifting his eyes up to mine, his jaw grinds before demanding, “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  I look down to see the nasty collection of bruises.

  “He raped you?”

  I nod.

  “What else?”

  His hands remain on my thighs, spreading me open, when I admit, “He used his gun.”

  “What do you mean he used his gun?” he seethes through his teeth.

  “To fuck me with. He used his loaded gun and then forced it in my mouth to suck.”

  His fingers sink into my skin as he drops his head, and I can see the muscles in his shoulders and back flex in anger as he tightens his grip on me. His words strain when he goes on to ask, “And all the blood on your mouth?”

  “He was raping me with his gun in my mouth, but I managed to get away and I bit him.”

  “His dick?”

  “Yes,” I whimper, and when he looks up at me, I reveal, “I wanted to die. I begged him to shoot me.”

  “Don’t you dare think about leaving me,” he scolds.

  “He told me you didn’t care what happened to me, that you weren’t coming.”

  “I did come for you,” he affirms. “All I could think about was finding you. I was going crazy not knowing how to get to you.”

  Grabbing a washcloth, he runs it between my legs and begins to gently clean me. Once he has me washed, he keeps me naked as he helps me up into his bed. Nestled in his sheets with his scent all around me, I want to smile, but I can’t. Regret consumes, hating the darkness I’ve brought to us, wishing I could erase it and go back in time to do it all over again.

  “I need you to know something,” he murmurs, wrapping me up in his arms. “I’m not the same as I was.”

  But I already know that. It’s evident in his eyes. From the moment he stepped out of his SUV and I knew he was alive, I saw the corruption inside of him.

  “I keep trying to process what I did to Bennett, find reason for allowing myself to lose control, but I can’t.”

  Reaching my hand to his face, I press my palm against his stubble, and all I can manage to get out is a breathless, “I’ll love you no matter how dark you turn.”

  And with that, he finally kisses me, pressing his lips to mine in a fever of emotion that tells me everything that is buried deep within him. His body, heated in bands of roped muscle, rolls on top of me. We’re flesh on flesh, transparent, bare. Scars opened wide for each other to see.

  His lips move with mine, opening me up to reunite, claim, and control in carnal ustulation. He growls, rolling his tongue with mine, as I tangle my hands in his hair, savoring his taste.

  His cock is thick and hard against me, but the moment he grinds himself over my pussy, I wince in pain, crying out as I flinch away from him. He tenses above me, and I try pushing him off of me, but he doesn’t budge.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt out as he allows me to sit up.

  “It’s okay,” he soothes.

  “I just—”

  “You don’t need to say a word.”

  Coming in, he takes my breast into his mouth, sucking my nipple, all the while keeping his eyes pinned to mine as I look down at him. He feasts in primal need and I don’t deny him of his need for closeness in this limited capacity. With my legs bent and spread, he lowers himself on me, dropping his lips to my pussy.

  “Don’t let me hurt you,” he tells me as I run my hands in his hair, fisting it the moment his tongue dips through the seam of my core.

  He keeps his touches soft in a very un-Declan-like way that I’m not used to. Dragging his tongue over my clit and then pressing the flat of it against me in slow circles, sending a chill up my spine. Gently, he sucks the bundle of nerves into his mouth. His deep groans vibrate against me, and I know he’s restraining himself, so I grant him permission, saying, “It’s okay. You won’t hurt me.”

  As soon as my words are out, he bares his teeth, sinking them into my most tender flesh as I pull his hair. I hiss in a pleasurable pain that only Declan is able to give, and I’m satisfied in knowing he’s content to inflict it upon me. I sink down into the bed when his hot tongue begins fucking my pussy, dragging in and out of me in torturous delight.

  Grabbing on to my hips, he begins to move me over his tongue, up and down, push and pull, forcing me to now fuck his face. Sparks flicker when I close my eyes, and I give in, grinding down on his face, and his approving growls to selfishly take this pleasure he’s offering spurs me on more.

  Thighs quiver, hips buck, heart thuds, and I don’t deserve this.

  “Stop.”

  I push him away and scoot back.

  “No,” he barks at me, pulling me back down, wrapping his lips around my clit as he grips his cock and starts jerking himself off.

  “Declan, please,” I whimper as he draws me closer to my orgasm, but he ignores me.

  His tongue laps over me, teasing, sucking, biting, licking. He’s fervent in his movements with only one goal in mind, and when he rolls my hips against his mouth, I explode.

  Shattering waves of electricity burn and spark through nerves and veins, heating me in a frisson of passion. I come sinfully hard, feeling every pulsing contraction of my pussy gripping Declan’s tongue as he moans out his own orgasm. Our sweat-covered bodies writhe together as internal wounds open in vulnerability. Tears spill from the corners of my eyes when he kisses his way up my battered body, over my breasts, a
long my neck, and up to my lips where he says, “Taste how perfect you are for me,” before dipping his tongue in my mouth so I can taste myself on him.

  And we kiss.

  We kiss like no two humans have ever kissed before.

  We’re tear-stained savages, sharing a single breath of life, death, and love. Giving, taking, bruising, and reuniting what I thought was forever destroyed.

  And for the first time in a very long time, when I tire out and close my eyes, I spend my slumber with Carnegie.

  WAKING UP, DECLAN is sitting up in bed next to me, drinking a cup of coffee and watching the world news on the flat screen above the fireplace that’s across the bedroom. As the rain falls outside, pelting against the windows, I lie still, allowing my body to wake up slowly as I watch a breaking news segment.

  When I stretch out, Declan notices I’m awake, saying, “Morning, darling,” and opens his arms up for me to curl into.

  “What time is it?” I ask in a groggy voice.

  “After one. We slept all day.”

  Turning my attention back to the television, I listen to the report on an American aircraft that crashed after there was a malfunction with the landing gear. I melt into Declan’s hold as I watch the reporter give an update as the passengers are deplaning in the background. He announces everyone’s survival and that only a few were injured and are being taken to the hospital. But it’s when the camera pans over the passengers that my heart stalls and I immediate sit up.

  “What is it?” Declan asks, but I can’t speak, and then the segment is over.

  “Can you rewind this?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just rewind it,” I say on a trembled voice and my body goes into high alert.

  Declan rewinds the segment, and as soon as the camera zooms in on the passengers, I tell him, “Pause it.”