Heart Recaptured

by Tillie Cole

  Movement from my left caught my eye, and a male nurse wearing scrubs met my stare, freezing in his step.

  “You done?” I asked shortly.

  He nodded and went to speak, but I cut him off. “Get the fuck out and don’t come back until I tell you.”

  “But—”

  “Fuckin’ do it!” I roared, and hitting his back on the medical cart, the nurse got the hell out of Dodge.

  As soon as the door shut, I flicked the lock and walked slowly to Lilah. Standing at the side of the small cot, I noticed the IV sticking in her hand, the smell of antiseptic coming off her skin.

  I ran my finger over the back of her hand, listening to her soft breathing. Her face looked so calm, so peaceful. She was so beautiful, so fucking beautiful.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I dipped down, pressing a kiss to her soft lips, then scooped my arms under her back and shifted her to the side, careful of the IV.

  Kicking off my boots, I lay down beside her, breathing in her vanilla sweet scent. Wrapping her hand in mine, I laid my head down on the pillow beside her and stroked her short hair.

  “I love you, baby. We’re gonna get you through this, ‘cause, fuck, you deserve more to life than you’ve been getting. You deserve to be happy with me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lilah

  Hearing the steady rhythmic dripping of water, I slowly opened my eyes and was instantly faced with a white-tiled ceiling. Disorientated, I took in a deep breath and filled my lungs with air. My entire body felt stiff, my back itchy and raw, so I gently rolled to my right side and instantly stilled.

  There, before me, was a mirror on a wall, a mirror reflecting a woman on a bed. A woman on a bed covered in bandages, messy short blond hair, and a large white bandage on her cheek.

  Blue wide and shocked eyes stared back at me, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

  This was me?

  This is me…

  Flashbacks crowded into the forefront of my consciousness—the knife, the daze, the cuts, the extinguishing of the devil’s curse… the freedom from my beauty.

  Inhaling a careful breath, I immediately frowned. There was no twisting of my stomach as I realized what I had done. There was no demon in my mind, tormenting me, telling me I was a sinner, that I was bound to hell. All I felt was a calmness, a divine peace that I had never experienced before.

  I was no longer beautiful. This girl staring back at me was… less. Less than attractive, less than sinful. This girl would be nonexistent in men’s eyes. To me, this girl was my kind of perfection.

  As I stared at this girl, I realized there was real beauty in the ugly.

  I tried to smile, smile in sheer relief, but the injured side of my face did not lift, the scar too deep, affecting the muscles, the sensation of the movement strange and unknown.

  Lifting my hand to feel along my new face, I caught the wire poking from my skin, and more memories came to my mind. The gun I had grabbed, pulling the trigger, Maddie running forward, Flame pushing her out of harm’s way… And Ky, Lord, Ky holding me in his arms, his eyes tortured and afraid.

  “Baby… what the fuck have you done?”

  I had lifted my fingers to run down Ky’s flawless face. His head pulled back and his stunning beauty almost knocked the breath from my lungs. He was a good man, deserving of a real true love. I smiled for the freedom he would now have. “No more temptation. You are free from temptation… and my soul can now be saved.”

  The blade, my cheek, losing my evil appeal…

  Then the pain did come, for I knew I had lost him. The spell Ky was under was no more; his attraction to me would be broken. I had lost my love, but although it hurt, I knew it was the right thing to do. I felt the tightness on my cheek, the sting of cuts on my body, but I also felt the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders.

  I was no longer beautiful. I had fought the devil inside and won. I would no longer tempt men. I could finally reach salvation.

  Suddenly, a low sigh sounded beside me, and I froze. In the reflection, I did not see anyone else in the room, but when another low noise filled the quiet, I knew I was not alone.

  Turning my heavy body and head to my left, the smell of tobacco and engine oil immediately crashed over me, and my heart began to pound. Bright-blond hair tied back in a messy ponytail lay on the pillow beside me.

  Ky.

  My Ky, fast asleep beside me.

  What was he doing here with me? He was now free, his bonds to me broken…

  Darting my eyes around an unfamiliar room, I panicked when I noted strange machines gathered around me. I did not know where I was. My groggy mind, though, was beginning to clear. My hands started shaking and when I went to move my left hand, something was wrapped around it.

  Glancing down, I found Ky’s firm hand was intertwined with mine. And he was gripping it so tightly, like he could not bring himself to let it go, even in slumber. Then for the moment I forgot I was in an unfamiliar place, I just focused on the fact that Ky was here.

  I was no longer beautiful, yet he was here.

  My skin ruined, my hair gone, and my cheek marred… yet here he was, protecting me, lying by my side.

  Why?

  My thumb ran over the rough skin on the back of his hand, and hearing a stirring, I fluttered my eyes up to meet his. I held my breath as his newly awoken blue eyes roved over me, staring at my face.

  This was it. This was the moment I would lose him. My lungs shut down as I awaited what he would say, but then I almost cried.

  “Baby,” Ky breathed out in loving relief, and he slowly leaned forward, releasing his hand from mine and carefully brushing back my hair. I closed my eyes, relishing his touch, but my mind could not stop asking the same question.

  Why has he not left yet? He is now free.

  Ky’s loving hand drifted down my neck and down my arm, and I reluctantly opened my eyes, trying to fight back tears.

  Ky was staring at me with the most adoring expression I had ever seen, more than when I was perfect, more than I had ever seen on his stunningly handsome face before. Then, bracing for my reaction, he dipped his head down and brushed his lips so softly against mine.

  I was stunned.

  I did not know what to think. I had sacrificed my beauty to set my love free, but he was still here.

  I could not understand why he was still here!

  Ky’s lips continued to caress mine and, at first, my mouth stayed unmoving, too shocked that this beautiful man was kissing my… my… unpretty face. But Ky kept pursuing me, his tongue slowly lapping around my lips until they parted on a gasp and his tongue plunged inside.

  Sensing his addictive taste, I was lost to him. Then he was everywhere—in my mouth, his cautious hands in my short hair… his soul in my heart.

  Pulling back, Ky’s eyes were shiny and bright, at first I thought it was with lust, but when the flicker of a tear slipped from the corner of his tired eye and trickled down his cheek, my heart crumbled to dust.

  “Ky,” I cried. Leaning forward, wincing with discomfort, I kissed away the hot, salty drop. “Please, do not cry—”

  “Don’t fuckin’ do shit like that again, baby,” he interrupted in a raspy, hurt voice. There was no anger in his voice, just a desolate crushed roughness. “‘Cause I ain’t wanting to be without you. You hearing me? You’re my fuckin’ woman. We ride this road together, no matter what gets in our way.”

  Blinking furiously, I tried to form a response, but I could only blink some more.

  Ky’s fingertips ran around the edge of the bandage on my cut cheek, his eyes pained, and he said, “I’ll ask again, Li. Are you hearing me?”

  His loving gaze implored me to say something.

  “I… I do not understand what is happening,” I whispered, watching Ky’s head tip to the side as he studied me. He wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand and pulled himself together.

  “What, baby? What ain’t you getting? What the fuck’s goin
g on in that head of yours?” he asked, his voice still graveled with emotion.

  Stroking at his short beard, I asked, “Why… why are you still here? I do not understand why you are here, by my side.”

  Ky’s face blanked and then all his muscles tightened, small lines crinkling around his eyes. “Where the fuck else would I be if not with my woman? My broken woman. You hacked yourself up in front of my club, baby, shot a brother while in some cult trance, and you had to come to the hospital. I was gonna be nowhere but right in this bed with you, making sure you were okay.”

  “Your woman?” I asked in complete shock, and this time my heart thundered in… hope?

  Could he…?

  Could Ky…?

  No… it was impossible!

  “Lilah, baby, you gotta start making some sense, because I’m fuckin’ lost right now.” He leaned in close, his tongue licking along his perfect lips. “You’re my woman. You’ve been my fuckin’ everything since I first saw you. Do you not understand that by now?”

  Tears blurred my vision and a disbelieving sob escaped my lips. Ky’s hands held the sides of my head and his face softened at my reaction. “I love you, Li. You’re mine. My woman. My property. My fuckin’ old lady… my fuckin’ forever.”

  “But… but I am no longer perfect. I set you free from the devil within me. I cannot tempt you into false love again.”

  Confusion clouded his features, then that confusion turned to frustrated anger. “That’s why you did all this shit? You thought I was under some fuckin’ spell? Do you think that little of yourself, Li? To fuckin’ hack yourself up?”

  Lips trembling, I said, “It was not just because of you. All any man has ever wanted me for was my face… my body. I have been taken against my will since I was a child. Every touch that was ever laid upon me I was told was due to my evil and sinfully beautiful face. I was taken and touched because men could not resist. I was schooled and taken as a child by Brother Noah because it was how I would be saved.”

  I could see rage boiling in Ky’s face, so taking a fortifying breath, I added, “But unlike those men, men that I could tune out, I loved you back. And because I love you so much, I want you to be happy. I could not keep you with me under false pretenses.”

  Fighting back all fear, I said, “I could not take living like that for even one more day. All the pain the elders inflicted on me these past few days, the fire they trialed me with, the involuntary joining I was forced to endure with Brother Micah… I just wanted to be rid of the cause of it all. My beauty, my appeal to men has always been the cause of my pain and strife. Segregated because of my blond hair and blue eyes that the disciples could not seem to see past. Shunned from my family for tempting older men into salacious thoughts.” Tears dripped down my cheeks as I added, “I want to be unnoticed. I want not to exist in men’s eyes. I made sure that happened. I want to be nonexistent.”

  Ky sat up on the bed, swung his legs off the side, and his head lobbed forward, turning his white shirt-covered back to me. I saw his muscles tensing and his shoulders shaking. Using what little strength I had, I pulled myself up to sitting position and placed my hand on his back.

  Ky’s beautifully tortured face turned to mine, his profile regal and strong. “But that’s where you’re wrong, Li. ‘Cause scars or not, hacked-off hair or not, lash marks on your back, a fuckin’ cross burned onto your stomach or not, you are perfect to me. You will always exist to me. And anything you did to yourself to fuck that up didn’t work because you’ll always be the most beautiful bitch I’ve ever seen. You’ll always be the only bitch I’ll ever see, period.”

  “Ky, I—”

  Whipping around, Ky trapped me on either side with his huge arms, his wide body hovering above mine. “No, Li, you need to listen to me. You were dragged up in a life that did you nothing but wrong. Hell, not fuckin’ wrong. They abused you nonstop, raped you, made you fuckin’ think all the good you got inside or out was fuckin’ evil. It was those sick fucks thinking they were disciples of God that had to make you feel like shit to get their fuckin’ pedo rocks off! I ain’t got no faith. Don’t think I’ll ever reach the pearly fuckin’ gates, but I know if there is a God, nothing those freaks are doing is what he wants. He would fuckin’ love you for you, not your beauty, ‘cause, bitch, who wouldn’t?”

  Ky stroked my hair and brushed a kiss on my injured cheek. “I’m gonna love you with all these scars, with this sexy-as-fuck short hair. However the fuck you look, wearing a damn Glad bag if you want. I’m in this with you ‘til the very end.”

  Looping my arms around his neck, a surge of love… unconditional love swelled through me, and I said, “I cannot regret it.”

  “Regret what?”

  Studying his perfect face, I was overwhelmed with happiness. “I cannot regret what I did to myself. I feel I have been set free.”

  Ky sighed as if from exhaustion and his forehead touched mine. I closed my eyes, cherishing this miracle. This miracle lying beside me.

  “I cannot believe you love me… like this,” I hushed out. “You are my unattainable dream come true.”

  Ky shifted to the side and, careful not to touch my injuries, pulled me over to him until I draped over his chest, his warm, protective arms wrapping around my back. I could hear him trying to speak, but he could not get the words out.

  Closing my eyes, minutes passed, and I inhaled the comforting scent of Ky. Eventually, he pressed a kiss to my head and said, “I’m gonna make you feel beautiful, baby. And you’ll never be made to feel less than anyone else, ever again.”

  A foreign wave of peace filled my soul as Ky lazily ran his fingers through my newly short hair.

  “Is it like this with everyone?” I murmured, lost in the feel of his touch.

  “Like what, baby?”

  “This, how it is between me and you. How we feel for one another. Is this normal?”

  Ky inhaled a sharp breath and his hand around my shoulder held me just that bit tighter. “Nah, baby,” he hushed out, adoration clear in his husky timbre. “It ain’t like this for everyone.”

  Sighing in contentment, a realization hit me. “Then it was all worth it,” I admitted and really truly meant it.

  “What was, Li? What was all worth it?”

  “Everything…” I whispered, my pain-filled life flashing through my mind—the tortures, the loss, the segregation, the abuse… the rapes. I nuzzled into his torso and continued. “Every single second of my life… because it eventually led me to you. It led me to fall so deeply in love with you, Ky… the man who recaptured this bruised and battered heart.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ky

  “Ky? Where are we going? The compound is back that way.”

  It was exactly two weeks since Lilah had cut herself. Today, she was comin’ home. And thank fuck, ‘cause I couldn’t deal with one more night sleeping in that narrow-as-fuck bed.

  My woman was doing better. Her cheek was healing. The scar was still red and fresh, but my woman was doing good. Real good. She was changed. The release of being beautiful, now being scarred, had somehow freed her, and I fucking adored the bitch as she was now.

  Lilah stared at me all confused as I turned onto a back road that ran to the land Styx’s old man and my old man owned behind the compound. Her blue eyes narrowed, her fat lips pursed. Her pixie-cut blond hair—courtesy of Beauty—was as cute as hell, and I could never bring myself to tell her, but the cut made her even more beautiful than she was before.

  “Going somewhere new, sweet cheeks,” I said. Lilah turned to look out the window. “Can’t be staying at the compound no more. Deserve to be somewhere else.”

  Eyebrows furrowed, Lilah’s eyes locked onto me. I couldn’t help but grin, really wide. Two miles down the road, I turned the truck left and into a small clearing, which featured a newly refurbished log cabin in the middle.

  Lilah gasped. When I pulled to a stop, she jumped straight out of the truck and ran to stand in front of the cabin.
I got out and walked up behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and rested my chin on her head.

  “It is like the ranch,” Lilah exclaimed, all impressed and shit.

  “Used to be my old man’s. Styx had them done up earlier this year.”

  “Them?” Lilah queried.

  Freeing my hands from around her waist, I gripped Lilah’s hand and walked her round back. Pointing at a road up a hill, I said, “Styx and Mae will be living a few miles away up that hill.”

  “Styx and Mae will be moving from the club?” she said with a wide smile.

  I nodded. “Yeah, ‘bout time we stopped fuckin’ around and used the cabins for what they were built for; the Prez and the VP.”

  “Does anyone else live near the club?”

  “AK, Vike and Flame live ‘bout five miles south of here near the river. Separate cabins, but near enough to be neighbors.” Cupping Lilah’s cheeks, I said, “But Styx, Mae, and Flame, AK, Vike, they’re not just living near me.”

  “I… I do not understand.”

  I stared into her eyes and said, “They live near us.”

  Lilah’s eyes widened in shock. “You wish for me to live with you?”

  “Lilah, there ain’t a choice. You’re not staying at the club no more. It’s not a place for my woman. You deserve a real home. Our home. You loved Sia’s ranch, this is similar.”

  Tears filled Lilah’s eyes, and I crushed my lips against hers. She moaned into my mouth. Within seconds, the kiss became something more. My cock got real hard, and Lilah wrapped her hands on the edge of my cut, pressing those hard tits against my chest.

  I lost it. I hadn’t had Lilah since the night she was taken, and I had this overwhelming need take her, fuck her, cum inside her, and make her mine, once and for fucking all.

  Running my hands down her dress, I held the back of her thighs, lifted them, and wrapped them around my waist, running for the cabin, Lilah’s lips still mauling the fuck outta mine.

  Grabbing the doorknob of the front door, I kicked it open, Lilah not even bothering to look at the TV room or kitchen, not lifting her head as we climbed the stairs, not even breaking from my mouth as we entered the bedroom.