Page 49 of The Shape of my Scar (The Unbroken #1)
T hey lay in silence for a while, limbs tangled, hearts slowing.
Then, quietly, she said, “I couldn’t do this before. There was no pleasure. Sex was a chore that was proof that I was okay. That I could do it despite what happened to me.”
Thane stayed still. Listening.
“I mean… I couldn’t even think about it for the longest time, about letting a man touch me. It felt…” She shook her head. “Wrong. Even if they were kind.”
“You don’t owe me this,” he murmured.
“I know,” she said, voice steady. “That’s why I wanted to give it to you.”
She shifted slightly, not to pull away, but to look up at him.
Her eyes were open and vulnerable. There was no hiding left.
“I was twenty-two the first time I had sex. After…you know. It was our graduation party. He was a guy from my academy cohort—a good guy. We’d joked around, trained together.
I knew I wouldn’t see him again. He was being posted far. I let him take me home.”
Her voice drifted slightly. “He was gentle. He knew I had been through stuff, so he took off my clothes like I might break. It was short. There were no fireworks. I didn’t enjoy it…but it was mine. I made the choice. And that felt like I had won something.”
She let out a breath. “I dressed and left right after. I couldn’t stop crying in the taxi. Or at home. But I didn’t regret it. I think I needed to do it first, on my terms.”
Thane stroked her arm slowly, saying nothing, just holding her close.
“There were two more…for lack of a better word, encounters,” she said softly.
“Both…forgettable. Then nothing. Until you.” She looked up again, gaze clear.
“When you touched me—even before you knew who I was—it was like putting my finger in a live socket. Uncomfortable. But I liked the pain. It was like you restarted my heart. Isn’t that insane? ”
Thane didn’t answer. Just exhaled shakily and brushed a kiss against her temple.
“You saw Theodora,” she continued, quieter now. “And I knew exactly what you were thinking. You thought you had found me.”
His grip tightened slightly.
“She was a decoy,” Faolan said. “They always plant one of theirs for insurance. So, if a raid happens, all the real kids get eliminated. Usually just a shot to the head. Easier than untangling the mess if someone outs them.”
A long silence stretched between them. He had seen this as well. Now he was kicking himself for not realizing.
“The things I’ve seen, Thane…”
He pulled her into his chest, crushing her there. One brawny arm tight around her waist, the other threading through her hair.
After a long while, he spoke. “Girls at school thought I was a prize of some sort,” he said bitterly. “But I was fucked in the head. I’d look at every blonde, blue-eyed girl and wonder…what if it was you? I couldn’t stop.”
Faolan was listening.
“My dad forced me into therapy. I was acting crazy. Getting into fights. Angry all the time. At twenty, I was still looking, but inside? I’d given up. I told myself that I’d imagined you. It was the only way I could function.”
He let out a breath. “First time I tried…with a woman…I blacked out. Scared the hell out of her. She was kind, but I was shaking. I couldn’t breathe.
She called Zel from my phone and he came and got me.
I picked someone else at a pub a week later.
Brunette. As different from you as possible.
I could do it that time.” His voice dropped, as if ashamed. “After that, there were others.”
She touched his jaw, gently. “You don’t have to explain.”
He looked away. “I wish I’d waited.”
“No.” She leaned in, forehead against his. “I think we needed to grow up apart. We would’ve self-destructed if we found each other too soon.” Her fingers curled at his chest. “We’re both broken, Thane. But we fit. Like Kintsugi. The cracks don’t ruin us…they make us hold stronger.”
His eyes softened, then darkened as his hand slowly slid down the length of her body, settling against her flat belly. “You don’t have to worry about Anatoly,” he said, voice rough now. “He won’t ever be found.”
She nodded.
Then his hand moved again, spreading wide and possessive across her abdomen. “I can’t wait to put our baby in here.”
She gasped a little—half laugh, half sharp pleasure—when he nuzzled her neck, his scruff scraping over the sensitive flesh beneath her ear before he bit down on the soft cord of her neck. “I want to change your last name,” he murmured against her skin.
She tilted her head, heart fluttering. “Alright…”
He paused.
“Kearney was my sperm donor’s name,” she whispered. “It means nothing to me. Feel free.”
“Good,” he growled. “Because now you can’t back out.”
She smiled, eyes shining in the low light. “Not a chance. But I don’t see a ring.”
Thane didn’t waste time.
The moment the Horsemen had gathered in old kitchen over morning coffee, he’d said it without ceremony, like it was bursting out of him. “We are getting married.”
There was silence.
Lirian only raised a brow. “Figured with all the ruckus last night. I thought a couple of monkeys had gotten loose from the zoo.”
Faolan felt the blush rise up her neck, but Thane only grinned.
Zel exhaled like he’d just lost a bet. “Should’ve stocked champagne.”
Maro, leaning back in an armchair, eyed Faolan with a slow smirk. “There’s no ring yet,” he said. “Until the event…I’d say the game is still on.”
Thane didn’t reply.
Instead, he took Faolan by the hand and dragged her straight out.
She protested. Or at least she tried to.
“This is ridiculous,” she hissed as they entered the third jewellery boutique.
He only glanced at her sideways. “You picked me, remember? This is what comes with it.”
The fourth store did it.
Behind glass and velvet sat a ring that made her breath stop.
A large sapphire—deep, vivid blue, the kind that shimmered like bottled midnight. It was set in warm yellow gold, circled by sixteen rose-cut diamonds in a delicate coronet setting. The band was slim, simple, and elegant. The stone was large enough to draw notice, but not vulgar.
Thane didn’t even ask. He could read her like a book. He slid it onto her finger like it had always belonged there.
Faolan stared down at it. Then at him. “You’re mad.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “About you.”