Page 21 of Empire of Carnage

They’d seen the extent of my injuries, but now that they were healed it was different.

I didn’t look so much like a victim as I did a monster.

Not even a monster but a monster’s plaything, covered in holes and crooked stitching.

“Take your shirt off,” she gritted out, her fingers gripping the hem of the fabric.

I inhaled, wrapping my fingers over hers and letting her guide the shirt over my head. I held that exhale at the bottom of my lungs and waited for any of them to say something, anything, to confirm how disgusting I knew I now looked.

“Fuck man.” Mateo was the first to break the silence.

She ran her fingers over the areas where skin was puckered and raised up, scar tissue doing its best to heal wounds that had been ignored.

“Ask me what I see when I look at you,” she said quietly.

“Morena.” I sighed again, wishing I could make her understand that it wasn’t about how I looked, but how I felt.

And I felt like a monstrous failure. Her fingers lingered over the raised up scar in the shape of the five petal flower.

“I see a man that belongs to me. A man who selflessly sacrificed himself for me. A man who gave me everything, including the courage to keep going. Their hatred and their insecurities may have left a permanent mark on you Santos, but all I see is a declaration of love. That scar on your face is the same as that brand on your chest and both of them say ‘property of Celia Flores to me.”

This woman was a titan, and I was a mere mortal, searching for a place to worship her even if just in evanescence. I would let her have me for as long as she considered me worthy.

“All of this is my fault,” I reminded her before looking up at the rest of them.

Ronan ran his fingers over his face like I was ruining the moment, but she seemed unphased by it all.

“I’m so tired of figuring out who’s to blame. We’ve all fucked up tremendously. Isn’t that enough?” she asked.

“I haven’t.” Mateo smirked and she actually laughed, cracking the serious mask she wore and making my heart flutter with nostalgia.

I used to be able to do that to her.

“I guess that settles it, you can both get out,” she said, turning back towards Mateo, locking her arms around his neck, and pressing her lips to his.

“Sorry sunshine, you’re not calling the shots on this.” He spun her around, one hand gripping one of her perfect tits and the other traveling down to her hip.

He shoved his knees between her legs, spreading them apart from behind and putting her on display for both Ronan and me.

She moaned loudly, dropping her head against his chest and grinding her pussy against his thigh.

“Somebody touch me, please.” Her eyes found Ronan’s who then found mine.

How we had gone from him wanting to punch my lights out for loving her, to asking me to fuck her was beyond me. It was time I dropped all my insecurities. I could do it if Zerkos could too.

I climbed up onto the bed and on my knees I made my way towards her. She was dripping all over his thigh, a look of need glimmering through those black eyes of hers.

“Please,” she whimpered again.

I turned my face to Zerkos.

He gave me a crooked smile.

“Fuck her so good she doesn’t know whose name to cry out.”

I pinched her chin between my thumb and the side of my index finger.

“Is that what you want morena?”