Page 97 of That Sik Luv

“They ruined you,” she sobs. “They ruined you and then blamed you for it.”

Her cries anger me further. The silent sobs that leave her chest infuriate me.

“And here you are, selfishly needing to touch me, just to provelove!” I yell, my face inches from hers. “You need me to prove my fuckinglove, Briony?!”

I push off her and run my hands through my wet hair, searching the room for something, anything, to prove my point. Seeing a pair of scissors nearby on the dresser, I grab for them as she tries to steady her breath behind me, still sealed against the wall.

I open the scissors, approaching her. Terror fills her face, and it’s a far more attractive look than the pity swimming in her eyes a moment ago. I hold them open near my mouth.

“Push me, Briony!” I warn through gritted teeth. “I’ll cut off my fucking tongue before I ever utter the wasted words to you or anyone else!”

I stick my tongue through the opening, the sharp edges of the scissors threatening to pierce through the sides of it.

“No!” she screams, her hands cupping her mouth. “No Aero, please!”

The sharp edges tear into the sides of my tongue and the taste of iron fills my mouth, but I don’t feel anything. Nothing but rage pumping like fire through my veins. I pull the scissors from my mouth as her shoulders begin trembling, her eyes wide with terror.

“You need me to prove mylove?” I say the word like it disgusts me because it does. “Let me show you whatloveis.”

Taking the blade of the open scissors, I slide it down the inside of my forearm, tearing through the skin. The sharp pain causes the soft caress that used to live there to vanish. I sigh in contentment, watching as blood drips from the open wound.

“I’ll drain myself of everything that pumps through these veins just to prove it,” I grit through my teeth before cupping the back of her head with the injured arm, the blood dripping down onto her neck, trailing her chest.

I seal our foreheads together, our eyes aligned so she can physically feel my truth pouring out of my soul.

“I’d bleed out for you, Briony. I’d fucking kill anyone so you could live. I’d kill you if I needed to, just to follow you to your grave so you can know the depths to which I’d fall to show I couldn’t fucking survive without you. I’d sabotage every aspect of your privileged, fake little life until you realized you’re only your best self with me by your side. I’d never stop.”

It’s toxic. It’s sick. It’s the only version of love I have to offer her as the monster I’ve become.

“I’m sorry.” She sucks in a breath as her panicked eyes study the wound. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. So sorry, Aero. P-please. I don’t need it. I don’t need the word,” she utters quickly, attempting to calm herself while calming me. “Whatever you’ll give me, I’ll take. They aren’t like us,” she mutters softly, gazing up into my eyes. “They aren’t like us.”

I stand there, panting as the rage from the past settles, until finally, the red lining my vision dissipates, and I see nothing else but her before me.

My Briony.

My rose.

Her understanding of love is entirely different from mine. Her lens, through which she sees the world around her is warped, in my opinion. But to her, my lens is a direct reflection of the pain I’ve yet to surrender.

“Some would call me broken,” I say again in indifference. “But I’ve never known anything other than the comfort of my pieces.”

She swallows, and I study the way her throat bobs before my gaze falls upon those luscious, pink lips. Her breath falls from them, slow and steady, her heart practically palpable beneath her chest. A strong, resounding rhythm, soothing in its own powerful right.

“I just know...” she says calmly, chin raised to meet my stare, confidence dancing behind her eyes at the words she’s about to express. “I just know that I’m the only one who can take it away.”

Take it away.

Briony pushes and she pushes. It’s what she’s always done. It’s what got her onto the radar of men who couldn’t tame her. Boundaries are not something this once sheltered woman understands or even wants to. That’s the one thing they couldn’t take from her. Her ability to fight and claw her way to the top of any mountain or obstacle placed before her. Even if that obstacle is my reflection. My demons. This is what initially attracted me to her. Who knew it’d be the source of my own reckoning?

Her hand carefully finds its placement over the upside down crucifix covering my ribs. She pierces her nails through my flesh after realizing the touch was soft. The veins near my groin flood as I breathe in her delicious scent, our foreheads still sealed together in a near-painful embrace.

She flexes her jaw as her mind fixates on something. Maybe the words of a little boy’s unfortunate past. The maddening anger is palpable through the tension in the thick air as her nails scratch the surface of the tattoo and her hand travels further south.

“You, Aero, are the throat from which I’ve been allowed to scream,” she whispers, the power of centuries of goddesses in her unwavering tone as her hand grips the edge of my towel, pulling it beneath the cuts of my tatted abdomen. “But I’m the eyes through which you’ll finally realize your worth.”

Chapter forty-four

Abstract Love

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