Page 94 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)

“I knew you were lying. I knew you were trying to protect me. Free me. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispers hoarsely. “I’ll forever regret I got in the way of us, too. I’ll never forgive myself for the time we lost.”

“No, no, please, you have to forgive young Tyler. Please forgive him. And maybe some part of you was relieved not to have to keep that promise?”

His eyes drop in confirmation as his entire being rattles with regret.

“How could I blame you for this? You were so young, and I was not a good woman to invest your precious future in.”

When he opens his mouth to object, I shake my head.

“Please, please listen to me,” I implore earnestly, and he nods, his eyes misted with guilt as he licks the corner of his mouth. The sight of it is so painful that I bring myself to kneel in front of him and grip his face.

“Soldier, I am begging you not to waste a second regretting it because it was never once your job to save me. It was my job .” I palm my chest with my hand briefly.

“It was my failure not to save myself. I have myself to forgive for that, not you. Please try to understand that and take that into your heart as the truth. But, there is more I need to say.”

He nods, his eyes tracing my face so carefully, so reverently that I almost lose my words, but for him, I find them.

For him, everything .

“It’s also my job to make myself happy .” I recite what I’ve learned and taken as truth in therapy. “And I want very much to bring joy to your life, Tyler,” I declare. “To care for, appreciate, and comfort you, and so much more.”

“Then mission already accomplished, General,” he whispers as he brushes my cheek sweetly with his thumb, before I dodge his kiss.

“Whoa, okay, this just got a lot heavier,” he says, moving to sit across from me as I also adjust myself to sit. Facing each other fully, our bent knees touch as he palms the blanket and leans in, his face inches from mine.

“It is not easy for me to give words of affection. It never has been. Never. I have felt many things very intensely, but most of them have been left unspoken.”

“I know that, baby,” he assures, reaching out to gently stroke my cheek. “You don’t have to expla—”

I palm his mouth to quiet him, and he chuckles against it before mumbling into it. “The floor is yours, my French menace.”

The man of my life stares back at me, his warm brown depths softening as they do as I face him, hoping my own expression is full of all I feel for him. Pulling my palm from his mouth, I press it to my chest while summoning the strength to put words to the truth I’ve been numbing for two decades.

“I am a victim of severe child neglect from my father and abandonment by my mother. I am a victim of domestic abuse, including rape and attempted murder. I am also a victim of the cruel mentality of strangers who wished harm against me and acted on it. A victim of their bullying.”

His eyes widen slightly as I finally recite the truth I have long denied.

“I am also a victim of self-abuse, which robbed me of all dignity, to the extreme point that I helped sabotage my health with my illness so I could finally free myself of the embarrassment and shame.” I blow out a breath. “You were right, I wanted to die. Ironically, I was scared to.”

Tyler’s eyes hold mine with strength as I summon my courage to voice the things I’ve held so close for most of my life. Speaking them aloud to acknowledge them for myself and for my soulmate to hear before I leave them as they happened—in my past. And for our future.

“With the heartbreak of Matis, my papa, who I do know and feel in my heart did love me but did not at all protect me in the ways a father should. To Alain, who terrorized me and manipulated me. Who beat and raped me when I became wise to his manipulations. And the strangers who taunted me and physically harmed me ... for all these things, I gave up on myself, on life many times. But it was the haze and Celine’s death that took all the fight I had left. ”

I swallow as he holds my gaze, fusing me with strength.

“After her death, I allowed myself to finally break for good. Selfishly, to the detriment of my nephews, whom I loved but could not take emotional care of because I was done taking care of myself.” I swallow and swallow again.

“I was so fucking intent on paying back life for what it gave to me that I did the minimum for Celine’s sons, isolating every day, living in the haze, the numb, the hell I felt I deserved for giving up.

That was my life, my cycle, every single day until you .

.. and my God, you. ” I allow my tears through, elated tears for being able to finally express this to him.

“But people are supposed to save themselves, Tyler. They must, even if they need help, they have to save themselves with their actions. People are supposed to fight for themselves , to free themselves of the chains in their minds. I might have failed in doing that without you, but because you saw me and loved me as I was , without limit or condition, you ripped me from a place where I had no more belief in myself. You showed me those chains and gave me a way to unshackle them. With y-you . . .” I falter.

“God, please help me say this,” I croak.

Tyler instantly cradles my face, eyes darting back and forth as he soaks in every word.

I stare back into the eyes of the one human being who refused to give up on me.

Who refused my fate, who walked through the hellfire I helped create to drag me out—more than once—kicking and screaming as I tried to re-enter time and again.

The gravity of that takes hold of me as I bare myself to him fully.

“What you have done for me, Tyler, is far, far beyond what most people would do for anyone they love when they so relentlessly abuse themselves . So, though we are not supposed to wait for some miracle to save us, you saved me. You are my miracle , Soldier. And here I am now, mere months free of that hell ... and with you, I feel safe , happy , content , and free .” I break on the word but continue.

“I feel beautiful, so beautiful, and I want to be beautiful. With you, I feel cherished, adored, sexy, so sexy, respected, desired, heard, and seen . And for the first time in my life, loved. I feel truly and deeply loved. ”

He sits utterly still as I exhale and speak more from my heart. “From hell, you brought me into living in this heaven with you. A dream which became so much more in loving the man in front of me with all of my heart.”

He instantly leans in, gently pressing his forehead to mine, eyes closing as his shuddered exhale hits my lips. I grip his neck, running my fingers through the hair at the back of it.

“Lift your eyes to me, Soldier, please,” I beckon before he slowly lifts his watering eyes to mine.

“Je t’aime, Tyler, I’ve wanted for so long to tell you.

For so, so very long. Before and after you left, and the second you came back, but felt it was so important to put actions before these words.

Because actions are all you gave me for the years you denied yourself the words.

But I felt it. I felt your love before you ever uttered the words, as I hope you have felt mine in our time here before I spoke it.

That you know and feel with just as much confidence that I love you just as much, just as deeply.

And that I am yours, loyally and faithfully yours. ”

His eyes spill over as we exhale into each other’s mouths before he lays me beneath him.

Hovering above me, he gazes down upon me with so much love before slowly dipping to rain unhurried, reverent kisses upon me.

In turn, I deliver the same type of kiss.

Along his jaw, his throat, everywhere I can until our mouths meet, our salted kisses mingling as we frantically shed what clothes we must to connect.

Tyler wraps the blanket around us just as I sink onto him, palming his face with both hands as I begin to move.

Every second of our lovemaking excruciatingly beautiful as our hearts pound together, and we lose ourselves in the divine connection.

Not a single movement is predetermined as he grips my hips, thrusting into me so deeply that I come undone around him.

Utterly gone in my bliss as my love for him pours from me.

I kiss every inch of his face, his cheeks, his jaw, and take his mouth as he comes inside me.

The diminishing of our lost years mixing on our tongues as we banish them together before we finally part.

It’s as we lay back, staring at one another for long minutes, caressing the other, that I realize I have one battle left to face. It’s then I make the decision that for myself and my soldier, I’ll endure this last battle to protect our paradise, our happiness, and the peace we’ve again reclaimed.

“It was you who was worth waiting for, Tyler,” I whisper as he stares back at me. “Je t’aime, Soldier, creator of my newborn heart. Mon seul véritable amour.” My one true love.

A harsh breath exits him as he pulls me back to him, gripping me so close as if he blinked, this dream would disappear.

I clutch him to me just as tightly, preparing myself for what’s to come—for what’s left to face.

The burden made more bearable and then forgotten as he takes me again on that hillside.

Thrusting into me, harder and deeper each time, his eyes holding mine during every second, strengthening me as his long-ago spoken promises write themselves into my flesh.

Branded permanently into my heart which pounds unguarded against his.

He presses himself into me as he kisses away the tears he causes with his intense lovemaking and my release, some of it mental, much of it physical, while murmuring “forever” against my elated cries.

And then he takes me again.

And one last time on our merged clouds before we drift away together.