My hand came out, and I traced that thin white line carefully. I felt the moment that he woke beneath my fingers—Aubrey’s lids stayed shut, but his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and the sound of his exhale was shaky. He was fighting a battle with his eyes closed, and I watched the minute expressions of each blow as it crossed his features. I pretended I didn’t notice that he was awake, and I leaned forward—it only made my body strain slightly, pulling at the stitches on my torso.
I pressed my lips in an almost kiss to the corner of his mouth, and my tongue traced the ridge of that damn scar. It spilled across his usually serious expression, brushed above and below his scowl. I trailed the line of it over and over again until a low groan spilled out of my throat, and I had to admit it wasn’t from pleasure. My stitches were pulling.
Aubrey’s hand on my shoulder shoved me back. My arm darted up to catch him, to tell him he couldn’t run from me, from this… but his eyes were open when I looked at him.
He studied me cautiously, and I could still see it—the urge to run, the urge to do anything butgive. Finally, he took a breath and brought my hand to his face. He trailed my fingers over the scar once and looked at me with a nearly blank expression.
“My dad was an asshole. He was an asshole my entire life.” It took me a moment to realize what he was doing. I wasn’t sure ifit was because I was injured and he didn’t want me to fight him, or if it was something about his reaction when I’d gotten hurt saving him. Whatever it was, I kept myself still and quiet beneath his touch, against his words. I didn’t want to break the spell. “When I was seven years old, he forgot to feed me for two days.” Aubrey’s mouth twisted into a wry smile, but I could see some demon fighting just behind his eyes. “I had the audacity to climb up onto the counter to try to get something, but I slipped and fell. I took a bottle of shitty alcohol with me when I went.”
Aubrey wasn’t in the same room as me anymore. His eyes were far away, like he was living in the moment he was telling me about. If I were a less selfish creature, I might have told him that was enough. But I wanted to know him, and this was the first time he’d shown me a part of who he was, who he’d been. I wasn’t going to interrupt.
“He caught me before I got out of the room and hit me in the stomach. God, he was such a bastard. His favorite game was trying to break me.” Aubrey’s voice took on a mocking tone. “What, you little bitch? Are you going to cry?” His eyes flickered for just a moment, like he was seeing me past the cloudy haze of memory. “The last time I cried was the day he killed my mother. He beat the fuck out of me for it then too. He beat me until I learned tears were a weakness I couldn’t afford.” I’d noticed that about him, but I hadn’t been sure if it had just been since he was with me. Apparently, it had beenalways.
“Aubrey…”
His fist clenched, and my eyes trailed down to his hand—it was littered with jagged little scars, the same pale color as the one on his mouth.
His eyes raised to mine, and whatever spell was tethering him to the past broke. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not when his expression took on one of pure dispassion instead of the half-dissociated, half-pained one it had been just a moment ago. “He took the bottle that I’d broken and he cut me with it. It’s not really much of a story, but there you go. All yours. Happy now?” He finished with a soft sigh and let go of my wrist.
My fingers traced the delicate white dots on his hand, then I lifted my eyes to the matching scar on his mouth. Aubrey didn’t move when I leaned in and trailed the line with my tongue. Slowly. Carefully, as I murmured against his lips. “All right.”
That piece of him belonged to me now. Before I was through, I would take every single one of his scars. One at a time, a piece at a time.
I wanted to own every part of the man in my arms.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
AUBREY
It tooka week staying holed up in the theater before Phoenix was finally healed enough for us to move. It wasn’t that the medication wasn’t working—the Order had gotten it from the same kind of men and women who’d spent their time injecting me until I took on the traits of the rabids.
Rapid healing. Extreme tolerance to pain.
I was just afraid to let him move. By the end of it, he was starting to get restless, but I wanted his skin healed over enough that if we were attacked, the new scar wouldn’t split.
That he wouldn’t be vulnerable.
That he wouldn’t get hurt again.
I’d spent too much time thinking he was invincible. I had to admit to myself that I’d grown reliant on the thought, the impossibility that Phoenix was so strong nothing could hurt him.
Nothing but me, apparently.
Nothing but my recklessness, sending yet another person straight into the arms of danger to try and get me out of it.
The thought made me sick to my stomach, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to examine exactlywhy. I just knew I crawled into bed with him every night when he held his hand out for me, and I didn’t question the way I laid my head on his chest to make sure that his heart was still beating. If I thought too hard on it, I was pretty sure I was going to hurt myself in a way I wouldn’t recover from.
As soon aswe stepped into the plaza, we were swarmed—not by rabids, but by Phoenix’s pack. Blythe was checking him over, running careful fingers across the scars my stitches had left behind and questioning if I knew where we could get more of the medication I’d used to help him heal.
Phoenix was telling Zero what happened at the theater, though I noticed he conveniently left out the part where we’d fought before I charged in. He just said we’d thought we could handle it.
It meant no one looked at me like a villain for wounding their leader.
Their family.
No one but Cutter, who turned his eyes to me furiously, though it wasn’t me he was addressing when he spoke.
