Page 171 of Stone: The Precursor

I can hear the wry humor in her voice. I remember that night at the wedding when she was wearing my jacket, shivering from the cold, and sad. The night she assumed I didn’t cry. I haven’t cried in years, but now the tears come. Her fingers comb through my shaggy new beard, chasing the tears going down my face. I haven’t given a fuck about shaving, and I know I look rough. Now I wish she were touching my skin. I worried she would hate me for what happened to her, and to feel her touch, her absolution, eases something brittle and jagged inside me. I groan, closing my eyes, turning my face into her soft palm. It’s all I’ll allow myself. I can’t touch her now, not when I feel like this, like I have to let her go.

I open my eyes and look at her neck, filled with healed scars. Small, inch-long reminders made from that bastard’s knife. They cover the hollow of her throat, her collarbones, the rounded curves of her shoulder. I know there’s a longer, more jagged scar in the middle of her chest on her breastbone. The surgery was to repair her lacerated veins and arteries. Helpless to my craving, I reach out and touch them, the still healing marks, tracing each one, feeling the pain in my soul. Rage bubbles. He cut her to scar her, to kill her. She’ll bear his mark forever, and it makes me want to dig up his corpse and rip the leftovers apart again. “He hurt you.”

“Yes.” She doesn’t elaborate, but just watches me.

“I let you get hurt. Because you don’t really know what I am, Camryn, who I am. The things I’ve done. The depraved and dark things in my soul. Things that aren’t meant for a woman like you.”

“A woman like me? What does that mean?”

Frustration and anger tinged my words, and I let them out, pulling away. “It means exactly what it sounds like! I’m fucking 44 years old, an ex-convict who enjoys things that could put me in a psychiatric hospital.”

“You mean your blood play?”

I chuckle at her naivety. “No. Blood play is a fetish and one that doesn’t harm your partner if done right. No, the things I like doing go beyond that.”

“Murder.”

She whispers it, her brow furrowed. I cup her face this time, losing myself in the need to touch her, maybe for the last time. “Yes.”

She swallows, and her eyes search mine. “How many? How many men have you killed?”

“Counting the Marines? Too many. But that was blind duty. This is different. This is what I do to balance the scales. To remove them from the earth because they don’t deserve to live, Camryn.”

“Because of Angel and Ivory.”

“Yes. And that’s why you need to stay away from me.” I drop my hands and step back again.

“So you save them? The women and children?You hunt down their abusers.”

“Don’t make me out to be some hero, Camryn. Yes I save them, but it’s for me.Ineed to kill them.Ineed to make sure I avenge them.”

“Mortem tuam uliciscar,” Camryn repeats the inscription on my sister’s tomb. “You blame yourself.”

Not surprised at her ability to read me. She’s the only woman who has seen so much of me. She’s the only woman I’ve laid myself bare for. “Yes. For her rape. For her death. My choices killed her and her child. I chose the Legion Lords and our enemies chose my family for retribution. They hunted them and I had no clue they would go after her. They killed them for enjoyment. So now my cock gets hard when I eviscerate them, and make a mockery of their death. Nothing makes me harder, more alive than ripping their bodies apart. Nothing except you.”

Her eyes widen, and she licks her lip. My dick responds.

“But you are a hero, Stone. Your darkness still brings people light.”

“Fairytale bullshit, Camryn. I’m a selfish bastard. Period.”

“That’s not true. All I know is I met you a year ago and since then you’ve cared for me, challenged me, consumed me. It’s burning in my veins. For the first time in my life, I’m not afraid to ask for what I want. I’m not afraid to be honest with myself. I don’t regret you or us. And I want you, Stone. Besides my art, you’re the one thing I’ve wanted, deeply and truly since I can remember.”

Tears drip down her face, and I touch the wet trails. The only other time she’s cried was the first time I fucked her. I treasure those, but these ruin me. I’m at war with myself over whether I can keep her safe and keep her as mine. I’ve never held onto anything. My club, my sister, and my niece were all I allowed myself to care for. She’s asking for closeness, asking for me to risk losing her.

“Don’t turn me away, Stone. Don’t use my brother, or my wealth or anything else that happened in your past as a barrier. I deserve the truth.”

More tears sting my eyes. I can feel myself weakening. I want to give Camryn what she wants, but not before I rip the proverbial band-aid off to tell her everything. She has to know what she’s getting into. “Then you’d belong to a killer. You want a man who would murder for you? Who has taken a life for you? Three times. And would again, without a blink?”

“Three?” She rears back. “What do you mean?” Her brows furrow.“Who else?”

“A man in the club. The night I took you home.”

“I don’t remember. What did he do?”

“He did too much and he paid for it.”

“Who else?”