Page 107 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)

“Do you remember what I told you about forgiveness when you took me to the sunset?

“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

“My ask is that you don’t let this go on so long that you and Ezekiel lose one another.

Your heartbreak is one thing, but the loss of your relationship with your brother will be the true tragedy.

I still, to this day, love your mother so much for loving me when I thought no one could.

I’m sure now that is why she remains so deep in my heart, and you have her heart, Dominic. ”

“I’m feeling a lot right now, Tatie, but I heard you.” He lets out a long breath. “You really don’t hold it against me?”

“No. I’m okay with things as they happened because he’s an incredible soldier, and I helped to rear the soldier inside of him to care for you both, which is my contribution and repentance.

And look what you all have become! I have so much pride that you are all the soldiers I wanted so much to be .

.. but please try to forgive as fast as you can so you don’t lose the time I have because it is damning,” I warn. “So damning.”

He studies me for several heartbeats before he finally nods again.

“Okay, that’s all I wanted to say.” I stand. “Good night... je t’aime, Jean Dominic,” I exhale shakily. “I am so glad you remember me... before.”

Turning from him to relieve him of any response to my affection, he grips my forearm to stop me when I take the first step up. Looking down, I see his eyes filled with pain before he poses his question.

“Do you want to play a game?”

“Do you mean Battle?” I perk up.

“Yeah.” He stands, “I don’t see myself sleeping anytime soon.”

“Okay.” I smile. “Let me go find some soldiers.”

* * *

The feel of little hands has me opening my eyes to follow their movements.

They carefully strip away the plastic before the adhesive is pressed to my skin, covering the fingerprint-shaped bruises on my arm.

The little fingers attached to little hands continually pluck from a box of Band-Aids that are propped against my drawn knee where I lay in bed.

It’s when he starts to hum “Alouette” that a sting I swore I was incapable of since I woke begins to burn my eyes, nose, throat, and chest. A sting that increases as I continue to rouse.

“Tobias ... you can’t go,” Tyler calls from yards away, trailing Ezekiel as he stalks toward his Jag.

“Where is she?” Ezekiel snaps in response.

Jean Dominic remains diligent in his task to cover me in strips of plastic where I lay on my side, facing him. With every bandage he successfully secures, he darts his eyes up to mine, sensing he’s being watched, and I close them just as quickly before he resumes his work.

As Jean Dominic attaches another bandage at the base of my neck, I ignore the tickle.

Fighting hard not to release the burning tears desperately trying to escape my closed eyes.

Slitting them open, I catch glimpses of the little boy at my bedside, who is doing his very best to cover every visible mark, every hurt on my body.

“You know you can’t—” Tyler tries to reason with Ezekiel as he, in turn, demands his answer.

“Where is she?” Ezekiel orders a second time.

“Je te plumerai la tête .. . oh, oh, oh, oh,” Jean Dominic squeaks as he carries on, as feelings I haven’t once experienced—nor been able to draw out since I woke in that hospital—start to crash into me like a tidal wave.

Emotion that I haven’t yet been able to summon.

Not once since Ormand looked over to me, sobbing with red-rimmed eyes.

Not once since Celine began to spoon-feed me, her eyes haunted as she assured me Alain was long gone and would never be back.

Feelings that did not arise the day I isolated myself in my bathroom, staring for long minutes at the damage my husband left in his wake.

Confusion has been present since I woke, as well as irritation with Beau, who did not heed my warning about Abel. Insisting he would deal with Ezekiel’s grandfather if he did become a threat. That our Ravens would stand guard and that we had the upper hand here in the States.

More irritation as well for the haze that now surrounds my vision, my memory.

For being so helpless and unable to care for myself.

For being unable to speak. But as far as real, genuine emotion, especially anger—not a trace.

However, it’s the loss of something essential inside of me that plagues and puzzles me.

The mystery of what was taken that sometimes outweighs the pain. Something I know now is not emotion.

But it’s Jean Dominic’s continued gentle touch and humming that has emotion threatening to overcome me now. Through slow cleansing breaths, as I gaze upon him, I manage to stifle the threatening cries so as not to scare him, though I want so much to free them.

“You don’t want to do this,” Tyler warns, his voice more urgent. “It will only—”

“Where is she?!” Ezekiel shouts as a tense silence passes.

“At school,” my love hesitantly replies, his curse floating up to me shortly after Ezekiel’s car door slams, and my nephew turns his engine over before racing away.

Jean Dominic hums as I keep up my charade, stealing glimpses at my nephew, where he stands at my bedside, bandaging me in an effort to heal me.

Inching my head back to gain more view, I glance down to see my pajama top is covered as well—but in only one place.

I count six Band-Aids lined up in a neat row across my pajama top, above where my heart lies.

The number is ironic to me because Jean Dominic could never possibly know that’s the number of years I was trapped in hell.

It’s when he finally works his way up to my face that I allow him to see my open eyes as his own widen in surprise. “Tatie!” he exclaims. “You are awake!”

I nod as he scans the work he’s done before he brings his gaze back to me. “Maman said you were so very sick and sad and that you can’t talk!” He shouts as if I’m deaf, too. “Do you feel better?”

His innocent eyes search mine in hope as I will myself to answer.

“Oui!” I manage, my voice unrecognizable with that one word.

“Maman!” Dominic calls loudly for her, and I know it’s to boast that he got me talking.

As he calls her a second time, I note the beauty of Celine’s youngest son.

Where Ezekiel is just as beautiful in his own right, Jean Dominic’s is ethereal .

.. almost otherworldly in a sense. I decide it has to be his youth and that all children are probably beautiful in the same way.

I have not paid attention to many children, but I have noticed it in Celine’s boys.

In their translucent newborn skin, the tiny veins just beneath their perfect pinkness, and their silky hair.

Which shines on its own without the added reflection of light.

Their souls just as flawless. Perfect and pure, free of debris and the filth of life.

Their tiny bodies and hearts utterly untarnished.

As I stare at Jean Dominic as he waits for his mother’s praise in those short few seconds, for the first time, I take a different meaning in the Word, which conveys God’s love for all his children.

Words which declare we are seen and loved by Him the very same way—new babes with translucent skin, tiny veins—and shine for Him without the reflection of light.

That His love keeps us safely in that veil and viewed the way I view Jean Dominic right now.

The idea that this could be the truth has my chest roaring in pain and longing, in desperate want of that love.

Where just days ago, I was made to believe that love is the greatest deceiver of all and could never exist in such a way for me.

But in my nephew—during those short seconds—I see God’s love.

Just as I think it, a shudder runs the length of my body before it erupts in chills.

A presence takes hold of every one of my senses, surreal warmth filtering throughout my heart as my mind goes utterly silent.

And with my mind quieted, I feel a soothing balm surrounding the riot roaring within my rupturing soul, a half breath before it’s snuffed out.

Within the length of a few heartbeats, all pain leaves me, and I experience a peace I never thought myself capable of.

Just after, I’m gently released back into reality.

That utter state of peace coming and going so quickly that I instantly wonder if I experienced it at all.

It’s the relaxed state that remains in the aftermath that convinces me it did happen—that I didn’t imagine it.

In that aftermath, the sight of Celine popping her head into my bedroom door, eyes comically widening a second before her jaw unhinges, has a smile threatening—a smile!

The mere notion of that expression seeming impossible to me, a feat I never planned on taking on after I woke.

Never to be fought for or mustered up, or a priority or remote possibility mere minutes ago that suddenly becomes knowledge.

A knowledge that someday, maybe not soon, but someday, I will smile again.

Celine’s eyes widen further as she draws near and lifts the box of empty Band-Aids, her voice light but scolding.

“My God, Dominic, did you have to use every single one?” Celine’s mortified eyes dart to mine in apology as she kneels before him and grips his tiny, healing hands. “And what did I tell you?”

“To leave Tatie alone,” Jean Dominic speaks, mimicking her voice. “But she said she feels better now, Maman!” he argues before he turns to me, his silver-gray eyes imploring mine. “She told me so. She talked to me, Maman! Didn’t you?”

“Oui,” I answer through the rusted blades in my throat as I manage my first words for him since I woke in that hospital. “Oui, m-m-much better.”

My sister’s eyes instantly fill with tears as we hold our stare for long seconds, both moved by the gesture of her beautiful little boy.

Hope bouncing between us for the very same reason—that we will survive this dark time and escape the lingering fear and pain together as we have every other obstacle we’ve faced since we became sisters.

“Come on,” Celine sighs, guiding Jean Dominic by the palm through my bedroom door as I call after him. They both stop at the threshold as I whisper the truth.

“You heal me.”

“Oui, Tatie,” he pronounces proudly. “Then I will bring more tomorrow!”

“No,” Celine laughs, ushering him out. “You will not. Come on, little prince,” she says, giving me a wink before they disappear from sight. Just after, I release the tears of hope I’ve been holding as I stare after the angel who just left my bedside.

Tyler surrounds me in his comfort as I stare down at Dominic’s solid white casket, pinpointing precisely what Alain took that night—the na?ve sense of safety God gifted us.

The blissful ignorance that veils and shields us from the evils of men.

Of being naturally blind to such evil. Of believing in Band-Aids.

A veil that no one, once exposed to it, can ever get back.

And in seeing that evil, feeling it, and becoming intimate with it, I can task myself to battle it like my nephew did before he lost that fight.

As more cars begin to turn over, I allow myself to mourn the loss of that veil for the last time.

To grieve the boy who stole my heart and brought me light and hope during one of my darkest times.

It’s then I collapse into my love’s arms and allow that grief briefly to take hold . .. but only for a moment.

Years before that veil was taken, I charged myself to fight the evils of men. And as I will the last of that grief out of me, I decide to reforge the soldier within and charge her to rejoin the battle she left long ago.

Fury begins to take hold, taking ownership of my grief as the restlessness that’s been prodding me since the day Jean Dominic died becomes recognizable.

Inside that recognition, a mold starts to take shape.

The inferno of anger blazing inside, pouring itself into it just after.

The base of my designed wrath precise for wielding.

The opposing edge sharpening to a point capable of penetrating any armor.

The tip of it coated in a venom so toxic it will unapologetically take down any barrier that threatens to interfere with its purpose.

As I gather my rage to poise it—to take aim—I feel the coil beginning within, growing tighter and tauter as I start to straighten my spine, denying another tear.

Tyler tenses briefly, sensing the change happening inside me before releasing me just as I lift my eyes to his.

In an instant, he recognizes what’s in my expression.

And though my days as this newly forged soldier are numbered, I lift my chin in defiance of that number, determined to take aim as long as I’m capable.

Not an ounce of fear remaining as I stare at the man who not only recognizes the fire now burning inside me but stokes it with the return fire in his own.

No words necessary as we solidify our new mission.

Our collective flames and darkness brushing before merging together as we mentally start to strategize.

Though they declared it, they’ll soon die painfully regretting it because, as of this moment, we’re taking it back and declaring it our own war .

As my soldier and I walk hand in hand from Dom’s graveside, we blaze together down that hillside with a matching search for vengeance in our rippling souls and wrath beating between our synced hearts.