Page 105 of That Sik Luv

It appears our brains have been seized entirely. Thoughts and words are distant ideas floating elsewhere. We’re just relaxing in a comedown from the flames of the fire that tore through us both, bathing in the heavy emotions that follow.

After showering together, allowing Aero to clean me with his hands as he always does, we change into comfortable clothing with plans to eat breakfast, then train in his woods for the rest of the afternoon.

My mind screams at me, telling me the time has come for my return. I need to head back to the school, to find Saint and begin the plans I’ve set for destruction upon the people who deserve it most.

After tying my dried hair up into a ponytail, I watch in the mirror as Aero pulls some distressed jeans over his muscular quads, settling on his slim hips. His hair is still a wet mop of tangled locks hanging down onto his forehead, the water droplets clinging to his broad shoulders. Enjoying the view of his backside, his rippling muscles and toned arms, I hear the zip of his pants, reminding me of the monster being caged. Biting the corner of my lip, my skin flushes with heat that makes its way south again, knowing the feelings I have for him far surpass anything I could have anticipated.

Everything I am.

Just as thoughts of love and endearment float like fireflies beneath the surface of my skin, they drop from my being entirely when I see a black figure pass the window adjacent to him. Before I can even alert him to the sight, I see his head turn ever so slightly, somehow hearing the footsteps outside the window. He turns to face me, shirtless, wearing only his black jeans as his direct eye contact demands mine. He stares with a wild, protective nature while holding a single finger to his lips, silencing me.

My pulse pounds in my neck, a cyclone of terror hitting me in the gut, and yet he looks entirely too calm. The rest of his fingers raise as he holds out a palm, telling me to stay put. I curse beneath my breath, closing my eyes tightly as the door to the bedroom bursts open.

Aero rests in the shadows behind the door while I stand near the wall of the bathroom, holding my breath as my eyes slowly open to the mirror, seeing the reflection of the intruder in our private space.

As if knowing to clear the room, the masked man grips the edge of the door, about to peer behind it where Aero’s standing. I throw my wooden brush against the glass of the mirror, causing it to shatter entirely, stealing his attention, if only for a second. The man turns, seeing my form standing in the bathroom’s light. Taking quick strides towards me, I squint my eyes, expecting to be knocked off my ass by the approaching man.

Aero emerges from the shadows without a sound. With a belt he grabbed from somewhere, he wraps it around the intruder’s neck, jetting the man back against his solid bare chest. The man’s eyes bulge beneath the cutout of the mask, his fingers clawing at the flesh of Aero’s flexed forearms as his grip tightens. Legs splay and kick out as the man slowly sinks to the ground, the seconds ticking away like minutes as I watch the life drain from him.

His eyes widen one last time as his mouth opens, seeking the air that he’s being deprived. Dark eyes peer up at mine as Aero drops the man with a thud against the wooden floor beneath him. His anger is penetrating me; his body, shaking with rage. This isn’t the man I was with a moment ago. This is the psychotic, trained assassin who’s put numerous bodies into the ground like it was nothing.

Another masked man enters the room behind him. Aero slides to the floor, seamlessly pulling the gun from the deceased man’s holster. He leans his back against the end of the bed with his legs spread out before him as his arms straighten, aiming. Firing once, the silencer captures the sound as the bullet finds the skull of the shocked intruder. He stumbles back against the door before his legs give way and he slowly sinks to the floor beneath him, leaving a splatter of bright red blood on the wood behind him.

I’ve stopped breathing. Tremors of shock roll through my shoulders as Aero silently crawls over the man, searching his body for weapons.

Finding another gun, he grips it, places it in the back of his jeans, then searches him for some sort of identification. He finds a wallet, nods once to himself, then tosses it at the dead man’s chest before spitting on his crippled form. I stand frozen in fear and trepidation, my mouth agape and my body stiff as he stalks towards me looking like a wild animal, unleashed and untamed.

I forget who he is when I so often find myself pretending who I want him to be. But one thing is clear, the veil of the obscure mask is worn, and whispers of Aero Westwood in our small community are finally becoming known.

Chapter forty-seven

Darkest of Angels

You’dthinkbeingarounda trained assassin who routinely kills for a living and enjoys inflicting and receiving pain would have me sweating bullets, but that reality is far from the truth. As it stands, Aero brings more peace and protective comfort than I’ve ever known. The building I’m approaching, however, has me shaking in my plaid skirt.

Killers. Real killers reside here. People who use and abuse their authority to control the masses. Using the disguise of an institution of love and faith to commit their sick acts of selfish crime.

They sent men to Aero to find and murder him. It was unclear to me who called the hit, but by the incessant rumbling of curse words falling from his mouth as he dug those body-sized holes on his property, I’d imagine he wasn’t expecting it at all.

His attitude had changed. He wasn’t the man who held me against his bare chest this morning. He wasn’t the man who brought my fingertips to his abdomen for a calming caress. He was visibly frustrated, with nothing but hatred and cold-hearted betrayal pouring from his fiery eyes. Probably more mad at himself than anything.

I could almost read his thoughts as his tight jaw clenched while he kicked the second man into the dirt. He hated himself for becoming soft for me. For allowing these men to get the upper hand and catch him in a moment of weakness, something this trained assassin clearly wasn’t used to.

Which was why I pressed Aero to move forward with the plans we had set in motion.

Acting the part, I enter the building amongst the hushed voices and side-eyed stares. I knew word of my disappearance had traveled. The students were well aware the only female Magnus Princeps had gone missing in search of her parents in the bush after the release of the flagrant video of theirs truly seducing the beloved man in line to become the next bishop.

Words like slut, whore, and sinner were being murmured in the dark corners of the hallways. Girls suppressed their giggles and boys eyed me like never before as I passed door after door until coming upon our classroom. The one we were meant to use together on our mission to educate the youth. Keeping their faith in an institution of control and lies. My heart sinks when I think of Brady still being locked within the confines of this prison.

Saint’s head snaps up from the podium where he was looking over lesson plans before the students filed in. His eyes grow wide and worrisome as his shoulders sag with relief, and it appears the air is taken from his lungs entirely. He pushes off the wood, circling around until he stops directly before me. His hands curl into fists near his sides as if to prevent himself from touching me.

Worry floods me like an inescapable wave, threatening to have me backing down from the plans at hand.

I push past my fears and make the first move. Opening my arms, I wrap them around his tight core, pulling him against my front. He stalls for a moment, sucking in a breath before his muscular arms wrap around me, his palm holding my neck to his chest as his thumb slowly runs along my jaw. I breathe in his minty musk, reorienting myself.

There’s a strange comfort in his hold. Maybe one of a life I used to know, where things made sense behind blind eyes. My naivety, providing some sort of strange familiarity to a time where my priorities were simply to gain the respect of my elders while developing my relationship with God and strengthening my faith.

Now, as we hold each other, secrets and lies reside between both parties, death and deception providing the bricks to the wall that divides us.

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