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  2. Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

  3. Severed Heart: Chapter 27
Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

Severed Heart: Chapter 27

TYLER FROWNS DOWN at my shattered water glass in the sink as I turn to face him fully. “What?”
“I’m enlisting at the end of summer,” he repeats as I gape at him.
“You’re not serious . . . Soldier, are you fucking joking?”
“What the . . . of course I’m serious.” He cocks his head. “Are you joking?”
“You haven’t said anything in months and months!” I shout, my tone and reaction surprising me. Bile climbs my throat, my anxiety spiking as I drop my eyes. I was already in fear of losing his constant company due to the end of our training.
“I know it’s a sore subject for you, so I never bring it up,” he admonishes, alarmed by the sudden shift in me.
“I t-thought you had reconsidered.” Panic continues to rise as I clamp my mouth shut while dread thoroughly seizes me. When I start to pick up the broken glass in the sink, he nudges me aside to do it, but I refuse him—needing the task, any task to keep myself together.
“Delphine,” he whispers in a consoling tone as I continue to carefully retrieve the shards. “Those plans we made together are for the future after I serve.”
“News to me now. Then what are you waiting for? What have you been waiting for? Go, Marine. I have no more to teach you anyway. You have what you need from me.”
“Well, hello bullshit, are we multitasking today by lying while we tap dance?” he bites out with edge.
Refusing to acknowledge his statement, I keep my eyes on the glass as I continue to pick at the dozens of tiny shards.
“Delphine,” he exhales, “I told you this when we started—”
“You were barely seventeen,” I argue, cradling the glass in my hand, “you were confused—”
“I’ve never been confused about enlisting,” he states, taking my wrist and dumping the glass I gathered from my palm into his to protect me, as if I’m a child, before disposing it into my nearby trashcan.
“I don’t understand why you’re giving me hell about this,” he says, gripping the side of the sink as I start to gather more of the broken pieces. “This reaction is ridiculous.”
“Do not call me ridiculous!” I snap, unable to justify a single word or reaction bursting out of me. Unable to stand another second of the unease, I head for the freezer.
“Stop,” he snaps, rounding me to make me face him, “don’t. Not yet. Talk to me.”
I push at his chest, and he doesn’t budge. “You talk to me, Soldier. Explain to me why you plan to enlist in a controlled army, carrying out others’ orders. Orders of corrupt puppeteers. I taught you how to lead, to build and run your own army, not to fight in someone else’s wars!”
“Tobias is—”
“Has no idea what he is asking his biggest asset!” I screech. “I work with you for your future with Ezekiel and Jean Dominic, not the fucking US military.”
“Look, I agree it’s flawed, but that’s why I’m—”
“Flawed?!” I gawk as my hands begin to tremble. I haven’t raised my voice like this to a man in years with such concern. I steady myself on the counter as that truth sinks in. Seeing my sudden shift, Tyler covers my shaking hands with his own. I bite my lip as I stare down at them.
Who will steady my hands when he leaves?
Selfish. I’m being selfish, and my selfish mouth speaks again. “What are you thinking, Soldier?”
“I’m thinking you can’t write the whole bushel off for a few bad apples. There are thousands and thousands of good men and women who sign up with the best of intentions. So, what I’m thinking is that I’m doing this for them, for the dad I had, and for my Uncle Gray, whose hands sometimes shake like yours. What I’m also thinking is that I have to have the fucking resume to protect any higher-up in government. If we get Preston into office, think of what we can do and the changes we can make.”
“If, Tyler, if,” I say, as my entire upper body begins to tremble.
“Don’t be afraid,” he utters softly. So close, he’s so close. His smell surrounds me, bringing me comfort in one heartbeat while searing me the next. “Speak your mind, yell at me. I can take anything but you being afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Tyler,” I exhale, “I’m afraid for you.”
“Do you honestly have so little faith in me?”
“All the faith in the world!” I admonish, chest heaving as the anxiety builds and builds, and my eyes start to water. “All of the faith I am capable of resides inside you, Tyler, and my nephews. You have all my respect, you have my hopes, and you have my—” I stop myself as realization sets in that I’m squaring off with not any man but this man, and it’s becoming more and more clear why.
He runs his thumbs soothingly over the back of my hands, his eyes dipping to the movement as I study him up close. So beautiful, my best friend, and he’s leaving. He’s leaving.
“Glad you think so,” he whispers, bringing his pleading, rich brown eyes to mine, “but this is my fight. This is my stake in this club. This is my chance to try to make a difference.”
“Tyler.” I take a deep inhale. “You are needed here. Here, in Triple Falls, I did not spend all this time . . .” I bite my lip, disbelieving of my selfishness. “All this time.”
I pull my hands away before stalking over to the freezer for my pint. He’s at my back in an instant, crowding me against it. He cradles me with his body as my selfish tears start to fall.
“Who needs me here, Delphine?” he asks, his voice telling in that he’s aware of his answer as his warm breath tickles my ear. “I’ll come back. You know I will. I can’t go a single day now without talking to or seeing my best friend.”
The feel of him has me opening my freezer door, and he slaps it shut just as quickly, inching in and cradling me with his body, his warmth enveloping me. “Please don’t. Please talk to me.”
“No point,” I croak weakly. “I know you well enough to know you have made up your imbecilic mind.”
“Who needs me here, Delphine?” he repeats, as he grips my hip with a warm, calloused palm while burying his nose in my hair. He’s steel behind me, solid man, and briefly, I get lost in the feel of him, sinking into his hold and comfort. “God dammit . . . now?” he whispers, running his forehead back and forth along my shoulder.
I stiffen in understanding of his meaning as he slowly turns me to face him, caging me in his arms against my refrigerator. Edging in, his eyes implore mine, the tension in the air thickening, his perfect, full lips so close.
“You are too valuable to be someone else’s soldier,” I utter hoarsely.
Grabbing my hand, he presses my palm to his chest. “I’ll never be anyone else’s soldier, and I think you just realized that.”
“My soldier would stay,” I whisper as he lifts his hand to stroke my cheek with gentle fingers. He’s so close now that we’re sharing breath, our foreheads touching.
“Soldiers don’t stay, General,” he whispers, “but your soldier will come back to you. Every fucking time you order him to.”
“Then I order you not to go.” I lick at a tear as it reaches my lip, and he follows the movement.
Licking his own lips, he slowly lifts my bleeding thumb to his mouth before wrapping his lips around it and gently sucking. The added feel of his tongue tracing the tiny cut has my eyes fluttering.
Entranced, I watch as he continues to suck my thumb, and a soft whimper I can’t hold escapes me. His eyes fire as it leaves my parted lips. The need to flee fills me, the desire running rampant between us with no way to contain it. It’s too prominent now, too present and threatening. As my breaths increase, I realize this attraction has gone on longer than I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge. The look in his eyes confirming as much, as well as my response to him. When did I let this happen?
“I’m here now,” he whispers in a way that heats every inch of me.
I drop my eyes. “Tyler, we—”
“Look at me, Delphine.”
I do, as the blaze from minutes ago reignites fully in his eyes. So easily summoned that my entire body draws tight in response, and a pulse between my thighs begins to pound, demanding relief.
“You’re the most beautiful goddamned woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he states emphatically. “I’m sorry you don’t like that to be noticed, but just so you’re aware, for me, it’s fucking impossible not to.”
When I try to escape his caging embrace, he keeps me loosely trapped between his swollen biceps, his palms on the freezer. Eyes drilling into mine, breath becomes hard to hold at the intensity residing inside them. “Tell me why I can’t say it. Tell me why I’m not allowed to take notice of it or compliment you, even if only to do that.”
“You know why.” I swallow. “Men’s attention has brought me nothing but misery.”
“Because of Alain?”
The casual drop of his name unnerves me further. “This is not for us to discuss.”
“Do you ever feel beautiful?” he demands.
“Let me go.”
“No, I’m sorry, not this time,” he offers, “this conversation is past overdue. I’m done tap dancing around this, Delphine. We can’t even go a few minutes anymore without fucking each other with our eyes, and I don’t want to, I fucking refuse to ignore it anymore.” He pins me with his fire. “I want you so fucking much, it’s eating me alive, and I’m done playing ignorant to the fact that you want me too.”
I gape at him. “You don’t know what you are saying. So much can change in a short time, Tyler . . . within a single blink.”
“You think I don’t know that? My whole life has imploded in blinks the last few years, but this isn’t a blink type of thing. I want to give you all of them.”
In his eyes, I see his resignation to continue to confront the feelings between us. To deny me the retreat to put us back in our place in an effort to keep his precious friendship.
“I’m pushing nineteen now, Delphine, and you know—”
“Nineteen,” I scoff. “Do you hear yourself, Soldier? Let me go.”
“Fuck no,” he snaps. “No, we’re doing this.”
“I watched you grow up,” I swallow.
“I could say the same, but we both know that’s bullshit. We never really or truly saw each other until that day in the living room. Even then, I’m positive I was the first to notice, and you’re all I’ve seen since.”
“Tyler,” I groan, every hair on my body raising on its end as his mouthwatering smell surrounds me, making this fight so much harder.
“Nearly two fucking years we’ve spent together, and you know everything about me,” he says adamantly. “You know me inside and out, my every weakness, about my parents, about my darkest thoughts, and I know almost as much about you, aside from one fucking elephant that’s constantly in the room and is now in our way.” He hesitates only briefly before stating his demand. “It’s time to tell me about Alain.”
“How do you even know his name? I’m positive I have never spoken it to you once. I never speak it to anyone. Ever. Drunk or not.”
His eyes drop. “Do you want me to lie?”
It’s then I see the truth of what I’ve suspected for some time. Since I saw his eyes roaming over highlighted passages of my French translation bible when he thought I wasn’t looking. His eyes moved with ease because he was reading. “You are fluent.”
He nods slowly.
“You read my letters.”
He keeps unapologetic eyes on mine. “Yeah, I fucking did,” he counters as humiliation stings me as well as his easy admission.
“Get out,” I say, ducking from beneath him as he grips my arm and pulls me flush to him.
“I know it was wrong, and trust me, I felt that guilt, but I had to know,” he whispers roughly, his voice weak with torment as he cups my face, sliding his thumb over my cheek. Even as fury and embarrassment threaten, I see the pain in his eyes. “I had to know,” he rasps out, “what or who hurt you so severely that you numb yourself.”
“It was not your fucking place to know,” I snap, as tears of humiliation sting my eyes. “Not your place!”
“Why not me?” He continues to gently sweep his thumb across my cheek as if I am what is most precious to him, and I feel the sincerity. Have felt it. “Why isn’t it my place? Why can’t it be? I’m the fucking man who’s been scraping you from every surface your pain leaves you lying on. Talking you down on your worst days, facing your fears with you before tucking you in at night. I don’t have a right to know?”
“I’ve never asked you for any—”
“Oh, the fuck you didn’t. You asked us all to because of the way you’ve treated and punished yourself, but I’m the one who wanted to know. You’ve left those letters and pictures out in plain fucking sight for years for anyone to see. Didn’t you ever once stop to think I might get curious?”
We stare off for long, tense seconds. Seconds in which I’m too mortified to speak as he carefully weighs my reaction.
“I think deep down you wanted me to know, and that’s why you’re not as angry as you want to be right now. So, I’m not going to let you make me feel like shit for giving a fuck about the woman who has literally saved me from some of my darkest hours over the last two years. Who has strengthened me during the worst time of my life while suffering every day in her own fucking skin. I cared, I still care, so fucking much, and so I read them because I had to know.” He swallows. “Now that I do, I can’t for the fucking life of me understand how any man could look at you, get the best parts of you, look into your eyes, touch your beautiful body, and fucking hurt you like that.”
He swallows again, and I feel the pain in his words, his eyes. I can feel it from him, as I always have. I’ve felt it through our shared looks in the dark—through our whispered confessions. I recognize now we’ve been more to each other than teacher and student for some time, and our relationship shifted well before today, though I can’t pinpoint when. But he’s been taking on my pain while confronting his own for much longer. From the beginning. Right up to the first day when he fixed that buckle on my suitcase because he knew it meant something to me. My eyes spill over in defeat as he forces me to realize and confront what I’ve known for some time now—that he’s managed the impossible and now resides as part of the beat in my chest.
“Delphine, if I apologize to you right now for prying into what hurt you, it won’t fucking be sincere because I had to know. Had to . . . and I hope, someday, that you’ll trust me enough to tell me the whole story.” I lower my eyes, and he tips my chin, leaning in so close his lips nearly touch mine. “But until you do, I’ll be staring into your goddamn house every night that I’m capable. To make sure you know that I won’t let anyone hurt you like that ever again. With the hope that your soldier makes you feel safe because that’s all he wants. Well, not all he wants,” he whispers roughly, “but now he’s made that clear, too.”
He tracks the tears trailing down my cheeks and considers them before gently brushing them away.
Shame fills me as he inches even closer, and I stiffen in recognition that I want it—that I want him closer. That I, too have been thinking about him differently. Never with this much attraction before, but enough to shame myself. That I search my window every night for him, feeling safer when I see his silhouette across the street. That I feel beautiful and cared for by the way he listens to me. That I have felt more myself with him than any other since Celine. But whatever this attraction is, I won’t allow it to destroy the peace I have with him. Or his peace.
“I will not risk our friendship for this. Whatever you think you feel—”
“Oh no, you fucking don’t,” he snaps. I meet his eyes only to see rejection and hurt shining in them. “If I don’t get to say anything more aloud, you sure as fuck don’t get to dismiss and deny what hasn’t even been spoken but is so fucking obvious between us. At least in the bright light of fucking day, right? Because we both know what happens between us in the dark, the looks we share before you close your eyes haven’t all been innocent. At least not in the last few months.”
“Get out,” I barely manage to say.
“No, whatever I think I feel,” he scoffs, “you feel it too, and it’s been worth every minute of the wait to see you recognize it.”
“Wait for what?”
“For our season,” he declares.
“What season? You are leaving.”
“You can’t be serious. You’re going to use the one thing you fucking trained me to do to try and push me away?”
“No soldier of mine would ever be so fucking foolish.”
“Me becoming a Marine is not what we’re talking about anymore.”
“Yes, it is.” I can’t stop the shake, I can’t stop it, and I lash out as he notices it with his prodding beautiful eyes. “If you are going, go now. I won’t help you with this any longer. I will not—” I shake my head. “This is a mistake.”
“All right,” he snaps as a fire lights in his eyes, “if we’re lying about the nature of this fucking argument, then I can’t agree with you. I’m sorry. I’ll always be the soldier you made me first and foremost, but we will have that future,” he declares with arrogant confidence. “The one we planned.”
“You lie to us both,” I declare back, ducking out from under him. “Get out.”
He remains steadfast, tone unflinching. “Love may have lied to you in the past, but I’m not them, Delphine. You know I’m not. You trust me. This is just your fear talking.”
“Please leave,” I order weakly, my weakness for him leaking from my every pore. “Please, Tyler. I need space.”
Perplexed, he stares over at me, chest heaving for long seconds as I cower.
“God dammit!” he barks, and I jump in response before he stalks out of the kitchen. Snatching my pint, I jump again when he slams out of the front door. Reeling, I sink against the refrigerator, letting my selfish tears fall, hating myself for what I’ve done to him and for what I feel.
For what I want.
For the truth that now beats clear in my chest. For the truth he spoke aloud, one that I avoided the second the whispers started in both my head and my heart. The whispers that told me that he not only brought back a trust I believed myself incapable of ever having again, but also other emotions and feelings I had long declared myself immune to.
Happiness.
Contentment.
Adoration.
Longing.
Desire.
So much desire.
Shame threatens to consume me for the last as I nurse the pint until I’m numb to it all. Sometime later, I feel myself being lifted, warm lips pressing to my temple as I’m deposited into bed. Pulled under from too much drink, I feel the gentle brush of his fingertips along my profile just before his whisper of promise surrounds me. “I’m coming back. I swear to God, Delphine, I’m coming back to you.”
“Soldier,” I finally croak, willing myself to rouse, to open my eyes. But when I finally manage to, he’s gone.
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