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  2. Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

  3. Severed Heart: Chapter 44
Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

Severed Heart: Chapter 44

DOM AND SEAN stand idly by in the driveway, exhaling mixed smokes while eating up some of their last few hours stateside as the movers latch the back of the truck before they pull off.
“You’ll watch over her,” Sean prompts for the umpteenth time, inhaling an exaggerated drag of his cigarette as I sigh and nod.
Dom remains wordless, burning down his joint just as excessively while wearing every bit of his brother’s wrath in his worn frame. Some part of me is hoping alongside them that T will pop up—possibly changing his mind and orders at the last minute. Then again, after personally enduring Tobias’s birdside manner the past few weeks that he gave Dom and Sean to prepare for their exile, I know better.
“I may be going along with this shit, but I won’t let her out of my sight. Not for a single fucking day.” Dom looks over to me then. “You have my word,” I declare to them both.
“Do you think he’ll forgive us?” Sean prompts.
“The best thing you can do is not miss that plane. That’s all I really know right now, man.”
Dom flicks his joint, his words for us both as he stalks past. “I’m going to do one last sweep and take a piss. I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry up,” Sean calls after him, “we need to hit the garage before we go.” Sean turns to me. “Thanks for getting our shit somewhere in the meantime.”
“I’ll put the boxes Dom marked back at Delphine’s and stick the rest in storage. You’ll both have a fresh start of your choosing when you get back.”
He nods, the worry in his eyes one I recognize, but he doesn’t speak it aloud, having spent the last two weeks making peace with it. Sean pulls me into him and claps my back. “Love you, brother.”
“Hang in there, man. It’s just another hurdle,” I tell him, “and she’s worth it.”
“Yeah, she is,” he agrees easily. “So fucking worth it.”
“Then go.” I nod toward his Nova. “The sooner you leave, the sooner you can get back to her.”
His nod is solemn, and I feel for him as he looks over at me.
“All of this is on me. I’m sorry, Tyler. I am, but I can’t bring myself to regret it other than hurting him, and that’s fucking hell to live with too . . . fuck.” He glides his hand again through his thoroughly jacked hair.
“I know,” I say, “head down but chin up. You’d be surprised how much you can endure for a woman who’s worth it.”
“Says the man who’s been to hell and back for his own,” he utters low as I go stock still. “I’m pulling for you.”
I remain mute as Sean eyes the townhouse, no doubt to make sure Dom’s out of range as he nudges me. “Come on, man. Ever wonder why I’ve asked about your hookups but never once asked you if you’ve been in love? It’s because I knew that answer.”
“When?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
“I spotted you looking over at her across that kitchen table one day and fucking knew. It was clear as day, and fuck how you hid it so well—almost too well. Well enough to make me doubt it, but that look you gave beat the guise hand over fist. To anyone who wasn’t looking, they might never have noticed, but I’m a man who fucking loves his brothers enough to notice.”
“Me too.” I blow out a harsh exhale, realizing just how horribly I’ve hidden my affection for Delphine over the years. Apparently, everyone fucking knew.
“Ten months, fuck.” He pulls me into a longer bro-hug before he stalks to his driver’s door, taking one last look at the townhouse before entering and revving up his Nova. For a brief moment, I resent T and his fucked punishment, already missing them both despite the nightmare roommate situation. We’ve been apart for years already, and our fucking planning is just paying off. But even for and to me, this punishment is fitting of the crime, so I try to let it go.
Dom exits the house shortly after, a small box in his hand as he stalks up and holds it out to me. “Found this in the hall closet.”
“Not mine,” I say, frowning down at it.
“It’s yours,” he insists before palming my shoulder, his version of a hug. “Think your mom dropped it off when we first moved in, and you never really unpacked.”
Grabbing the box, I peer over at him.
“I’ve got her,” I assure, sensing his ache as he keeps his eyes lowered. “Look at me, Dom,” I prompt, and he does, the unguarded pain in his expression enough to have me pissed at Tobias again. “I’ve got her.”
He nods before glancing briefly at the townhouse and surprisingly pulling me into him for something closer to resembling a hug. “Thanks, brother. I owe you.”
“Sure you don’t want me to tell him?” I ask about the day he literally became a hero last month, but Dom’s insistent that he doesn’t want said heroics to play any part in this. He’s worried that his actions might give Tobias more cause to leash him. Dom shakes his head, indicating as much. I decide it’s one more secret I’ll keep from T for a while longer. Because as of right now, today, fuck him, and he wasn’t in on the secret.
His rules.
“Fine,” I sigh. “Just hurry the fuck up,” I say as he releases me, taking the passenger seat, before I watch the two of them pull out. Sean’s motor hums in their wake well after they race out of sight.
Chest aching due to their departure, I head back inside and set the box on the kitchen counter before opening it. Inside sits a pair of sneakers I wore out with my runs, a few of my high school yearbooks, and other small hits of nostalgia. Especially when I pull out one of the battalion soldiers I kept from the first game I won against Delphine.
Besides my old phone, the rest of the contents are mostly junk, but the sight of my Sidekick jars me a little. I’d left it charging on my nightstand the morning I confronted my dad and left home for good. I never bothered to retrieve it after my sabbatical in the woods just after enlisting, or after my trip to Georgia before I got on that bus. I grin as I unwrap the charging cord and plug it in for kicks. Heading upstairs, I eye the small litter of trash on the living room floor of the otherwise empty townhouse. Melancholic—but thankful this hellacious summer is fucking over—I pack what’s left and tape the boxes. Hours later, when I come down with the last of my shit, I click off the lights of the townhouse before retrieving my ancient phone from the counter. Freezing when I see I have fourteen missed calls and dozens of unread text messages.
I swallow as I open the feed up from Delphine and damn near hit my knees when I see what’s on screen.
General Half-Pint: I di d not mean it solder
General Half-Pint: Plse come back
I curse the fact that I don’t know what date she sent them, but I know for certain it was after I left, especially when I read the next one.
General Half-Pint: Plese dp not stop be frien d to me.
General Half-Pint: does soldeir not miss fish buddy
General Half-Pint: I cna stop cr y for y ou come bak to me sodler
General Half-Pint: I was wrnog so sorry please txet me bac k
General Half-Pint: You go marines no say bye to me question mar k
General Half-Pint: Plesa don t leave wihtiou say bye to me sodier of my heart
General Half-Pint: Plesse sodker I was scaerd so scard I am sorry ever y day
General Half-Pint: I so sad ans sorrry since you left I cry evey day I cannt breathe solder
General Half-Pint: I geuss you li e to me quest mar
Furious tears line my jaw as I stare at her last text.
General Half-Pint: I will wait
* * *
Knowing I’ve put some serious wear and tear on my engine with my erratic driving, I furiously blaze a path down the driveway, rocks battering my truck as I battle my conflicting emotions. Fury burning through me as reminders fly at me of what she’s already been through. It’s the need to confront her that outweighs those reminders. What I’ve fucking been through in the aftermath of that morning that overrules everything else.
Jesus, has she really been waiting all this time?
The truth of that rings true as her words from weeks ago slam into me. “I understand why you didn’t text me or come back.”
“Jesus Christ,” I rasp out hoarsely, relieved when I see her ancient sedan parked in the driveway as I pull up. The porch light illuminating her other carefully laid out lanterns and plants. The same soft light glowing from the kitchen beckoning me that my answers are there as my heart thrashes in my chest.
Far too gone in my anger and utterly wasted on the texts I got nearly a decade late, I waste no more time exiting my truck. Stalking over the porch, through the front door, and into the kitchen . . . I’m stopped dead at the threshold by the sight that greets me.
Delphine stands at the refrigerator with the freezer door open. A pitcher of iced tea on the counter. But it’s the sight of her, hair back to onyx-black, laying in silky waves over her shoulders, standing in a light blue sundress, feet bare, toenails painted, her skin glowing, full lips tinted, that sends me fucking reeling.
“Hi, Soldier,” she whispers as she lifts her gorgeous silver eyes to mine, and I swear I see her cheeks heat.
“You look . . .”
“Not the same as I once did, I know, but I fixed my hair,” she relays as if she’s not knocking the breath out of me with a sledgehammer.
“So . . . fucking beautiful,” I rasp out, swallowing and swallowing again as her eyes hold mine, searching for long seconds before they light with some satisfaction.
“It’s so ironic,” she utters. “You know I hated men noticing me for so long. Hated being their idea of beautiful and today paid lots of money to resemble a fraction of that woman.” Her eyes bulge. “It was so expensive, but Layla is my new friend, and I’m excited we are going to have ‘lady dates.’ I learned so much today. It’s so strange, but I have poison in my face!” She smiles, pointing to her cheeks. “And”—she extends her foot—“do you like my toes?”
Pulling the phone from my jeans as my heart thrashes toward the woman rattling feet away—looking like the dream I once worshipped with my eyes, lips, and cock—I lift my old Sidekick, and she stares at it like it’s nothing to be concerned about.
“You will use your old phone again?” She frowns. “Okay, I will maybe need the number.”
“Not exactly, Delphine.” I take a menacing step forward as she searches my expression, seeming confused by the hostility radiating from me. “No, today, I finally got your missed calls and messages. Eight fucking years later.”
She stares back at me, her eyes dropping. “Oh.”
“Oh, she says.” I shake my head in disbelief. “Oh? That’s all you have to say.”
She blows out a loaded breath as long seconds tick by, the night breeze lifting the kitchen curtains as she finally speaks. “What do you want me to say, Soldier?”
“I will wait,” I grit out. “Wait, how?”
She remains mute as she visibly starts to shake.
“Look at me, goddamn you,” I snap. When she does, she brings watering eyes to mine. “Wait, how, Delphine? Answer me!”
“How you asked me to.”
“How I asked you to,” I deliver with so much venom that she flinches. “How I asked you to? You mean as the woman I wanted to build a life with and around? The woman I wanted to love and trust with every part of me? Surrender my heart to? Make love to and fuck every chance I got? Be with in every way a man can be with a woman for the rest of my fucking life? In that way?”
“Yes,” she answers, her silver eyes holding mine as they shed silent tears. “But I was not sure of that, Tyler, not as much then as I am now. You know it was very complicated.”
“Complicated,” I scoff. “Well, you sure didn’t fucking help uncomplicate that once, did you? Not. Fucking. Once!”
“Soldier—”
“Did it ever once fucking occur to you that I switched phones or that maybe I was so hurt by what happened that I didn’t bother to retrieve my phone before I left for the Marines?”
“I—but you have your phone,” she points out.
“Because my mother put it in a box with other things she thought I might want to keep. Because my mother knew our text exchanges were on this phone because I showed them to her when we were trying to diagnose you.”
“You showed her my messages?”
“I think you’re missing the point, Delphine!”
“I’m not, Soldier. Do you want some iced tea?” she asks, voice shaking.
“Delphine!”
Another tear slips down her cheek.
“All this time, all this fucking time.” I glare at her. “You wanted it too.”
“I know this is serious, Soldier, but I had a really good day. I don’t want it to turn into a bad day.”
“Do you know how many fucking bad days I had because I didn’t get these goddamned messages? Eight fucking years of bad days, Delphine. Eight fucking years!”
She nods. “I am sorry. All this time, I thought you purposely ignored them.”
“Well, that’s just fucking . . .” I shake my head. “Eight years, eight fucking years, and you didn’t even try to talk to me!”
“But I did, Soldier. I called, and I messaged you. You see that. I took your silence as your decision. You did not call. Did not come back.”
“Yeah, well, I was trying to be done with you, and do you know why?”
“You didn’t see the calls or messages.” Her voice cracks as the pain becomes palpable between us. Years of loss—of time passed. Years we could have had together if she’d once been fucking brave enough to tell me she was—
“You waited for me?” I rasp out, anger overruling my need to console her, instead wanting to shake her, to fucking eviscerate her. “All this time?”
She bites her lip, eyes flowing.
“Answer me,” I snap, and she jumps again. The sight of it has my heart skyrocketing.
“Oui.”
“Oui,” I repeat, disbelieving of her calm—fucking hating it. Hating the sight of her altogether. “I can’t,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t fucking believe you let so much time pass. Even now, you haven’t said shit!”
“You say you don’t have those feelings for me anymore when you came to my house.”
“Yeah, well, guess what, General,” I drawl sarcastically. “Love lied to you that fucking day and has been lying every day since he came back so he could get you back and keep you in his life again!”
I rake her with my stare, unable to help myself as I eat up the sight of her. She’s still too thin, but she looks fucking gorgeous, very much resembling the woman I worshipped when we were together.
Her eyes light with hope at my admission as I bite back words I know will hurt her. Because I know she wants this, and I’ve been batting every longing look away, knowing what she’s capable of doing to me. Every part of me wants to obliterate that hope for her, wants so fucking badly to. Tension fills the air as she swallows, and the truth doesn’t set me free—at all. If anything, it feels like it’s strangling me.
“That morning,” I say, voice laced with fury even as I whisper, “you said ‘love is lying to you right now.’ You were flat out fucking telling me you were lying.”
She bites her lip and nods. “Oui. But please, Soldier, please understand all of my reasons for it. I knew I was not good for you, Tyler. It was part lie but so much truth. I was twelve years older and the laughingstock of my family—an alcoholic with many emotional problems. I did not want to corrupt your future. I didn’t want to hold you back.”
“Well, guess what, Delphine,” I deliver with clear lividity, “we’re together again, messages received or none, so what does that fucking tell you?”
“Love never lied to me,” she whispers, pressing a tear away. “I knew that, Tyler. In my heart.” She palms her chest. “I knew I was the liar that day.” Her eyes plead with mine for understanding that I’m incapable of right now due to the pain thrumming through me. “But we are together now, in this dream you created. You took a path meant for you to become a soldier, and I had to take my own to get here, in this place, mentally.” She points to her temple. “And I am here now, and I want to share this dream with you.” She takes a step forward. “I want so much to be with you in every way,” she whispers, love and hope fueling her expression.
“Yeah, well, if you’re this much of a fucking coward, why should I ever trust you with my fucking heart ever again?!” I snap before turning and smashing the phone against the kitchen wall. Her sobs follow me as I stalk out of the house, ignoring her desperate call of my name as I enter the cab of my truck. I turn the ignition over and look up to see her sobbing on the porch. She screams my name as I kick rocks up and race away, my heart cracking with the truth I’ve been suspecting since I came back. That she gave up the day I lost that battle and didn’t fucking cross the street. But even so, she’s been waiting for me this whole fucking time.
* * *
The patter of little feet sounds on the creaking hardwoods as I stare up at the ceiling of my room, my chest still pumping after endless hours of driving aimless miles. The fucking heart in my chest refusing any more distance as I drove every single one. Finally, turning around so it would stop battering me, continually ramming me in demand to get back to its owner. Glutton for more punishment for being in love with the most infuriating woman in existence since it made its fucking decision.
In a blink, she stands at the edge of my bed, but I don’t look at her. I can’t. If she’s coming to me, then I need her to have the strength to continue to be the one to do it. And she does, tentatively brushing her fingers along my arm before straddling me and lowering herself to cover me. Her weight settles into me, a perfect fit, her naked breasts brushing my skin as she lays flush against me, resting her head beneath my chin. I can feel the heat from her core on my stomach through her thin silk panties as desire threatens to blind me. Softly, she whispers my name, and the curl of her tongue around it has my eyes fluttering closed.
Her silky hair glides along my bicep as she presses a kiss to my chest, where my heart lies, before gently stroking my pec, tracing my tattoo. Her apology is everywhere in how she’s plastering herself against me in a silent plea. Inhaling her clean scent, I fist my hands at my sides to keep from touching her as I sink into the surreal feel of her—utterly bare to me in every way. Tamping down the raging lust now thrumming through me, I opt to speak, hearing the need in my voice as I do.
“Do you want to know why I really came back to you that day?” I ask, and she nods her head gently into my chest as she begins to trace the Roman numerals of my tattoo.
“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.
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