PART THREE
Flames
"How can you become new if you haven't first become ashes?"
—Friedrich Nietszche
Chapter eighteen
Lyla | Present Day
Shejerkedawakeat the dream, her heart racing as thunder rumbled in the sky outside. She hated thunderstorms. As a child, they had scared her, and as an adult, they reminded her of the night she had lost her most precious gift—her son.
She had been close to eighteen when one of the men in the club had impregnated her, and though the child had been the result of a rape, it had been hers. She had spent months connecting to him, loving him, talking to him, and accepting that he would never know her. The night she had gone into labor, there had been a storm, and after hours of unimaginable pain, he had come screaming into the world.
The doctor had cleaned him up and swaddled him for her to feed, but she hadn’t. She had only seen the storm, known that most of the people on the grounds would be under shelter, and she had run.
Run straight into the arms of the man who would change both their lives.
After that night, she had never expected to see him again. But less than a week later, he had showed up at her work.
And again.
And again.
Until he became a fixture in her life, an anchor in the hurricane, a rock against the waves. Until he started leaving a trail of bodies of everyone who tried to hurt her. Until he claimed all the broken pieces of hers as his own.
She wondered why she had dreamed of their first meeting tonight. It could have been the storm, or the fact that he’d talked about Xander for the fist time, or the fact that he’d held her like he had that night. Whatever it was, need, pure, unadulterated need, overpowered her.
Unable to stand it any longer, she moved on silent feel to the door, going out and to the guest room, her heart pounding, but telling her it was right, the same instinct that had made her trust him all those years ago telling her to do it again.
Close to his door, she inhaled deeply and opened it, just needing to take a peek if he was asleep.
He was.
Arm thrown behind his head, another on his stomach, eyes closed and face restful.
Hesitating on the threshold, she simply watched him, the need inside her a turmoil.
Quietly, without making a sound, she tiptoed into the room, going around his bed, her eyes on his face in the light from the outside.
This man, as dark and dangerous and defective as he was, was hers.
She leaned down slowly, pressing her lips to his for a second, feeling his breaths on her face as his soft mouth against hers, before she pulled back.
She turned to leave, right as a hand ensnared her wrist in a steely grip, making her heart pound as she looked to find him wide awake, his eyes alert, intense, heavy on hers.
He waited patiently for her to break the silence, and finding the courage from somewhere deep within her, she did.
"Make me yours."
He was up from the bed, tipping her into his arms in one fluid move like he'd been waiting for her, taking her to the master bedroom as she gripped his shoulders.
The room remained dark, only the little moonlight coming in through the glass doors lighting up the space.
Drunk on the dream, the emotions from the last few days, hell the last few years, she tilted her head to look at him in the moonlight—her dark devil who owned her soul.
“I was reading a book yesterday,” she whispered in the space between them, not knowing any finesse to say it any better. “The man in the story found the woman and said he would make love to her.” She swallowed. “Will you make love to me tonight?”