Page 1 of Branded Souls (Ember Hollow Romance #3)

Prologue

Skye

Eighteen years old

I stared at the ceiling tiles, pretending the image of his terrified eyes the moment I collapsed wasn’t burned into my memory.

The nurse’s cheerful tone grated against my numbness. “Vitals look good, sweetheart.” She tapped something into the computer, unaware of the chaos raging inside me.

Everything still felt…not real. My eyelids were heavy and my throat burned. An aching pain, dulled only by the painkillers pumping through me, radiated from my abdomen. I hated this.

When I didn’t answer, the nurse turned to me and gave me a bright smile. She was younger than the first nurse I had. The one who was there when the anesthesia wore off. The one who told me what had happened .

I still wasn’t sure how to make sense of everything she said, but I grasped the important details. I’d been bleeding out internally. The baby had attached itself in the wrong place and almost killed me.

I swallowed hard, wincing at the pain in my throat. Baby .

It had only been a few weeks that I’d known. A few weeks that had completely changed the course of my life.

“Skye?”

The nurse said my name, pulling me back from my spiral of thoughts. Her brows pulled together. Had she been talking to me?

“I’m sorry,” I croaked. My mouth was so dry, but I’d been told I could only have some ice chips, no water yet. “What?”

Her smile returned, but didn’t reach her eyes. “I was asking if you were ready for some visitors? Your boyfriend has been waiting for you.”

The mention of him had my heart clenching. Of course he had been waiting. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been here, but Fox wouldn’t have left me.

Hot tears pricked, but I fought the feeling. If there was anything I’d learned growing up with a father who punished more than he loved, it was that tears never helped. They only made things worse.

I pulled in a steady breath. I’d been in the recovery room for a while.

The haze of pain meds and anesthesia was hard to think through, but I hadn’t wanted to dwell on what had happened.

I didn’t want to think about what I’d been through.

The only thing I could do was think about where I was going to go from here.

Reluctantly, I nodded. Guilt festered in my gut as the nurse said, “Great, I’ll go get him. He’s been asking about you often.”

Fox. My Fox. I couldn’t imagine what had been going through his mind as he waited.

We’d been…fighting. We never fought, but we were ar guing about our high school graduation and what we were going to do.

I’d had my whole life planned out. I was going to go to the college of my dreams on a scholarship.

I was going to get out of this tiny town, go far away from my father, and I was going to make something of myself.

But I never planned on Fox. I hadn’t planned on falling in love.

I hadn’t planned on getting pregnant.

A soft knock, and then he was there. Fox stood frozen in the doorway, his usually steady gray eyes shadowed with exhaustion and fear. His hands were fisted at his sides as he walked toward me carefully, silently, like I might shatter if he came too close too quickly.

If I didn’t know him so well, I’d have thought he was calm. But there was chaos behind his composed veneer, a storm raging beneath the surface.

Fox scanned the tubes and wires dripping from me, the slight crease between his brows deepening. His dark hair was wild and disheveled, like he’d been tearing his hands through it.

He stopped beside my bed, meeting my gaze. “They wouldn’t—” His voice sounded as ragged and hoarse as mine, as if he’d been the one to have a tube shoved down their throat. He swallowed before continuing, “They wouldn’t tell me anything .”

His voice cracked on the last word and so did my heart.

“I’m okay,” I said immediately. Not knowing whether it was the truth, but the bit of relief in his expression was worth the lie.

He curled his hands around the rails of my bed, his knuckles blanching as if he were forcing himself not to reach for me. “Skye.” He said my name with such sadness that the tears threatened to surface again. “What happened? ”

I tore my gaze away from him, back to the ceiling. It was too much. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to hurt him.

But I knew that I had to.

“I—” My voice shook, trembling like my hands as they clutched onto the thin, coarse blanket over me. “I was bleeding a lot. Something was wrong and I…I lost the baby.”

The silence was heavy. Long. Fox was often silent, but I couldn’t look back at him. I couldn’t face what he might be feeling. I couldn’t face what I’d see in his expression.

Those stupid tears surfaced again, and I was so tired, so overwhelmed that I allowed one single tear to escape. Just one. It tickled my cheek as it traveled toward my chin.

Something brushed against my jaw, warm and soft. I blinked, automatically looking back down at him. Fox wiped away the tear, and then cupped my face with his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he said in a low whisper. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine.

His scent enveloped me, clean laundry with a hint of musky woods. He smelled like comfort and peace, and it took everything I had to keep myself together.

I closed my eyes for a moment and savored the feeling of him close. I’d never thought I’d feel this way about anyone. Never thought I’d trust someone the way I trusted him. But as much as I loved Fox, I’d realized something in that recovery room.

I couldn’t keep him.

Taking in a steadying breath, I reached up and put my hand over his. He was shaking, too, I realized.

“Are you mad?”

“Mad?” He frowned. “Why would I be mad?”

I shrugged a shoulder and winced. Apparently, not only was there pain where they cut into me near my stomach, but also in my shoulder for some reason. The nurse said it was normal. I’d argue nothing about this was normal, though.

Fox grabbed my hand. “What’s wrong?” he said, alarmed.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine,” I said, sharper than I intended.

His furrow deepened. “What aren’t you telling me, Skye?”

He knew. Of course he knew. He knew me better than anyone. I gritted my teeth against what I had to do, what I had to say. I’d made the decision in recovery. The one choice that I knew would be best for him.

After all, there was nothing to tie myself to him now.

The guilt was a heavy weight on my chest, crushing my sternum until I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Skye?”

Looking away, I reminded myself this was best. I couldn’t hurt him anymore, not after this.

“I need to leave.”

Another beat of silence. “Babe, I’ll take you home as soon as I can, but—”

“No.” I cut him off, forcing myself to look at him. “Fox, I can’t stay in this town anymore. I have to go. When I’m…better, I’m going to college.”

He blinked slowly, and I saw the gears churning in his mind. “Good.” He nodded. Some relief replaced the haze of fear and worry .

The reason we’d been fighting before all this happened was because I hadn’t been sure about college anymore. Everything had changed, and leaving after graduation had seemed so uncertain all of the sudden. Fox didn’t want me throwing away that dream.

He’d told me he would follow me wherever I wanted to go.

Fox placed a soft kiss on my forehead. “We can talk about this later. When you’re healed.”

I shook my head hard, even though it made me dizzy. “No, we won’t.”

He was confused and I didn’t blame him. But he needed to understand because I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t continue to bring him down. He would follow me anywhere, but I couldn’t do that to him.

Fox’s life was here, in Ember Hollow. His family was here. I couldn’t be the reason he left everything. I wasn’t good for him.

“I don’t understand,” he said slowly.

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard the bitter taste of iron coated my tongue.

“I don’t want to be with you anymore.” Each word felt vile and wrong.

There was nothing right about them, but this was for the best. “There’s nothing left for me here, Fox.

But there is for you. I just need…I need you to let me go. ”

I saw the moment realization hit him.

It was worse than what I imagined. It was worse than when he watched me go white and collapse from the internal bleeding.

Fox Ramsey shattered right in front of me. It was clear in his expression. In the tears that welled.

He begged with me. Pleaded with me. He said he’d give me time, but I didn’t want time. I didn’t want to give myself room to back out of this.

I was in that hospital for three days. Fox never left my side, but we didn’t speak. We didn’t touch .

A few weeks later, Fox drove me home in silence. He’d stayed with me as I recovered, maybe hoping I would change my mind. I didn’t, though.

When we arrived, he watched over me as I shoved my life into a bag. My father glared at us, face red and arms crossed tight over his chest. But he couldn’t hurt me while Fox was there.

“Leaving like a coward,” he spat. “Like your mother.”

The words hit me square in the chest but as I slung my bag over my shoulder, I couldn’t react. Couldn’t give him what he wanted. Not anymore.

As we headed toward the front door, I caught sight of my little brother leaning against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. My heart broke for him. But I was helpless. He was fifteen. I couldn’t take him with me. My father wouldn’t let that happen.

Throat tight, I approached him. He didn’t look down at me as I wrapped my arms around him. His body tensed. He didn’t return my embrace. I squeezed him as tight as I could.

“I’ll come back for you,” I promised under my breath.

And then I let him go.

Without looking back, I walked out of my childhood home of nightmares.

Fox and I walked off my father’s property and to my car parked along the street.

I’d promised I’d come back for my brother.

But I made no promises to Fox.

He stayed behind as I loaded my bag into my car and got inside. He stood motionless and silent as I drove away from everything—

Even him.