Page 85 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)
“Because the first time I noticed you, really saw you, I began to feel this innate need to stay near you. And when you confessed to me just after that you were hurt for the same reason, it only had me wanting to get closer. Both of us had been gutted and disappointed by our fathers. The men we trusted most with our hearts, who threw that trust away, threw our admiration, our fucking love away. That common bond explained my need to be with you because our scars matched and lined up so perfectly. But beyond that, it’s because we both felt like we’d lost a sacred place, a safe haven we both needed because that’s something we both need to feel whole. ”
A tear splashes against my chest as I give myself permission to run the pads of my fingers through her silky hair, nothing more.
“Back then, neither of us really put a voice to it, but we were still suffering together, silently sharing our pain and longing for that place. You were the only person who truly knew and understood what I was really going through, but you’re the one who comforted me most. It shredded my heart that I couldn’t be the same for you, but I wanted to, and I fucking tried so hard to be that for you. ”
“You did, you were, you did, Soldier. You know you did,” she finally says. “I saw you.”
“You saw a lost kid who reminded you of yourself, and I was, but that’s not all it was. I know that now. Do you?”
She nods, continually tracing my tattoo.
“I fell in love with the woman you gave me glimpses of. The woman who still had life inside her, but I also fell in love with the woman who was in so much pain that she drowned herself inside it because I felt that same pain every day. My soul searching right along with yours.”
Another tear splashes my chest.
“We might have come together because our scars matched, and we recognized we were missing the same thing, but we fell in love because we became the thing we both needed for one another, and that’s a sense of security, of home .
” I swallow. “I knew you thought the worst of yourself for giving in that night. I was prepared to fight you on the morality of it all, especially after reading the letters, knowing you knew exactly what it was like with Alain. But when you pleaded with me to let go because you didn’t want any more reason for them to hate you, I released you immediately because deep down, I did know they were your only true weakness. Dom especially.”
I continually run my hands down her hair, which feels like heaven between my fingers.
“When I knelt in front of you weeks ago, all those years later, I saw you searching my eyes for the place we created. I saw that we were both lost because we’d lost the peace, security, and place we had found in each other when we parted that morning.”
Another tear, and then another.
“I saw you recognize the boy you bonded with had become the man he hoped and promised you he would be, and then I saw your eyes dim because you didn’t think that boy recognized home inside you anymore.
But I did, Delphine. I saw it, and I still loved you.
When I drove away from your house, I couldn’t think of a reason for either of us to be without that peace anymore. ”
“You became that soldier, that man, Tyler.”
“I became the soldier I swore I would be because it’s all I’ve truly had since I lost that peace a second time.
Even though I tried to make myself hate you for it, your voice helped me through some of the worst fucking days of my life.
Even in your absence, you were still with me.
You would find me in the black. I would hear you so fucking clearly.
” My voice breaks as the memory seeps in.
The pop of bullets, the helplessness I felt, the sheer terror in the eyes looking to me for guidance.
Open your eyes, Tyler.
Breathe. One. Two. Three.
See it. Envision a way out. Do you see it?
“But you see, even if I got close to forgetting you, writing what we had off, and trying to put it in perspective, I couldn’t.
Because during the times I thought I escaped you—during my missions, through the worst of them, blood covering my hands, dirt beneath my fingernails, so fucking terrified, you were there.
You were there with me, reminding me,” I croak, “and you saved me, us, all of us, so many,” I rasp hoarsely. “So many fucking times.”
Finally wrapping my arms around her, I allow the truth to pour from me.
“But I didn’t come to you to save you, Delphine.
” I pull her tighter to me. “I came to thank you , to appreciate you, to fucking love you for the woman you are, not try and change you into some version of a woman I want you to be. I came back that day to spend time with the woman who recognized and embraced my darkness, as I did hers, and shaped me into her soldier. The woman who now and forever harbors the only place inside her that I will ever know that peace, home,” I whisper in the otherwise silent room.
“But if you lift your mouth to mine. If you offer me whatever you have to give, I’m going to fucking take it, and I’m going to keep it and protect it. But I warn you now, if you do, there’s not a thing on this fucking earth I’ll allow between us ever again. Not even you—especially not you.”
She instantly lifts her mouth to mine.