Chapter Twelve

Brynna

I 'm prepared for my father's wrath before the front door ever flies open, slamming against the wall so hard family photos crash to the floor. Naz called to warn me what he was going to do. I didn't try to stop him.

Surprisingly, Niall called once it was done. I didn't expect that. Things between us have not been good the last few days. Actually, they've been awful. He hasn't spoken a single word to me. It's killing me, but if he hates me for telling him the truth, I can't change it.

The fact that he called gives me hope that maybe things aren't broken irreparably between us.

I've been waiting in the living room for my father since Niall's call, my hands folded together in my lap, my heart in my throat.

He's barely over the threshold when he notices me. As soon as his fiery gaze lands on me, he explodes. "Tell me he's a goddamn liar!" he roars, flecks of spit flying from the corner of his lip.

He's unhinged in a way I haven't seen since the day my mom died, like his world is ending. He tore the house apart in his grief and rage that day. God only knows what damage he did outside these four walls. Niall adamantly refused to talk about it when they stumbled in covered in blood at dawn, but I know it was bad.

We had peace for months. For the first time in my life.

My throat burns at the sight of him so close to that edge again now. Disappointing him is the last thing I wanted to do. But I'm tired of disappointing me, too. I'm sick of barring the doors to my own damn cage and pretending that's the way it has to be just to keep him and Niall happy.

"It's true," I whisper, my voice steady even though my heart feels like it's in a vise. "Everything Naz told you is true."

Dad storms across the living room toward me, his heavy steps thundering against the hardwood floor. He reaches me in four long strides, his hands clamping down on my shoulders, his fingers digging into my flesh. "How the fuck could you betray your own family like this? For him?"

I cry out, fear pulsing through me. For the first time in my life…I'm afraid of this man. "You're hurting me," I whisper, struggling against his hold.

He mutters a curse, releasing me as if my words scalded him. Regret flashes in his eyes as he stares down at me, a modicum of sanity dimming the red haze.

"Jesus Christ, Brynna." He runs a shaking hand through his silver hair. "What the fuck have you done?"

Tears burn the backs of my eyes, but I blink them back. I won't cry now. It's a weakness I can't afford. "We fell in love, Dad," I say softly. "If anyone can understand how that feels, I thought it would be you."

He loved my mom beyond reason. He lived for her, breathed for her. And losing her broke him. It's been years, and he still isn't over her. He never will be.

"If you believe that, you're a fucking fool," he spits, the words like venom on a tongue that's never said an unkind word to me before now. "The man is incapable of love. All you are to him is a pawn, a pretty little plaything to use."

"You don't know anything about him," I growl, anger welling up from my soul. He doesn't know what he's talking about. If anyone should be able to see beyond the surface, my father should. But he's so blinded by hatred, he refuses to even consider it. "He makes me happy. Happier than I've ever been."

"He's a fucking criminal, Brynna! His hands are so bloody, it's a wonder they aren't permanently stained red."

"You're one to talk," I snap, beyond tired of everyone judging Naz for the same damn sins they've committed. "Or have you forgotten about the empire you built on blood? I certainly haven't. I live with the memories haunting me, with the guilt and regret staining my soul."

"Everything I've done has been to protect this family! To protect you."

"Maybe that's what you tell yourself, but we both know you did it for power and pride," I say. "Everyone who targeted me, you killed because you could. Because they dared to insult you. It had nothing to do with me, Dad. It was all about you. And so long as you had your power and your pride, you didn't give a shit what it did to me."

Pain roils in his eyes, aging him. He seems…older, weathered in a way he never has before. There are cracks in his armor, chinks I've never noticed before now. "I've given you a good life, Brynna."

"No," I whisper, shaking my head. "You gave me a cage and called it a life, hoping I'd never realize the difference. You made me complicit in things I never wanted, never asked to be part of. It's different with Naz. I know exactly who he is and what's he's capable of. But he gave me a choice, Dad. You never gave me that." I pause, tears blurring my vision. "He loves me. Why can't that be enough for you?"

"Because I don't want to bury my only daughter!" he roars, slamming his fist into the wall. The plaster cracks beneath the force of the blow. "One way or another, he'll get you killed. I won't stand back and watch it happen. You aren't seeing him again."

I thought my heart would crack in half when this moment came…but it doesn't. Too much of it belongs to Naz now, his name emblazoned and branded across entire tracts of it. Instead, a small corner of it crumbles, shattering into pieces.

"You're wrong," I whisper, reaching down to scoop up the bag I packed earlier. "I am seeing him again, Dad. I choose him."

He stumbles back a step, shock painted across his familiar face. "You don't mean that, Brynna."

"Yeah, I do."

"If you walk out that door, you won't be welcome back, Brynna," he says, his voice shaking.

"I know." I lean up on my toes, pressing my lips to his cheek. My throat aches, my lips quivering against his scruffy skin. This hurts. God, it hurts more than I thought anything could hurt. Because it wasn't Naz who brought us here. It isn't even war that destroyed everything. It's my own damn father and his stubborn inability to just…let it go. To let me go.

"Take care of yourself, Dad," I whisper. "I love you."

He closes his eyes, shutting me out.

I turn, running for the door as the tears slip down my cheeks. The sob I've been holding at bay claws its way up my throat, a broken, brutal sound. It's the loss of childhood, of innocence. Of everything familiar.

Naz is waiting for me down the street, as if he knew I'd need him. He steps out of the SUV, his amber eyes locked on my face. He doesn't say a word. He simply opens his arms.

I launch myself at him, hitting him like a comet.

He wraps me up in his arms, pulling me into the safety of his embrace. I bury my face against his chest, inhaling his familiar scent—sandalwood, smoke, and something inherently male. His lips brush my crown, a feather-light caress.

"I'm so sorry, little one," he whispers, his deep voice rumbling through me. "I'm sorry it came to this."

The regret in his tone is unmistakable, as if he genuinely wishes he could have forged a different path for me.

A sob wrenches from my throat, the sound muffled against his chest. And then I'm shattering, breaking apart, falling to pieces in his arms as the reality of what I just did crashes into me.

I walked away from my family, from the only home I've ever known, from everything I've every know. For him. Because I love him. Because I couldn't bear to lose him.

He doesn't tell me it'll be okay. He doesn't whisper promises he can't keep. That isn't Naz. He doesn't lie, not to me. He simply gathers up the broken pieces of my heart, holding me together…shielding me with his strength because I have none left.

And then he lifts me into his arms, sliding into the back of the SUV with me, and takes me home. Toward the future we've sacrificed everything to build together.

"Make me forget," I plead as he strips me bare in the privacy of his bedroom—our bedroom—in his mansion in Calabasas an hour later, his hands gentle against my skin. I feel calmer but stretched thin.

I need his hands on my body. I need his claim pressed into my skin. I need to be his, broken open and shattered for him.

His hands tighten on my hips without hesitation as he lowers me to the bed, his touch a searing brand shutting out everything but this—everything but us. He follows me down, his weight grounding me in the moment. In him. In us.

" Mi alma ." His lips find my neck, trailing scorching kisses everywhere he can reach. " Mi luz ." He nips my pulse point, sending an addictive kind of pleasurable pain skittering through my veins. " Mi vita ."

He paints a trail of devotion across my body with his lips, with his hands, with every word he breathes into my skin. His teeth close around one of my nipples, and my back bows off the bed, the shards of ice around my heart melting.

His fingertips dance across my abdomen, tracing every imperfection as if he intends to memorize—as if he already has. I gasp and quiver beneath him, delirious with pleasure, with the sight and feel of him.

He's soft with me, gentle in a way that's foreign and beautiful and so damn devastating. It's like he's determined to put me back together again with nothing more than the strength of his devotion, the fervor of his worship. And damn him, it's working.

I wanted to break. To crumble and burn. He won't let me. He builds me up instead, breathing iron and fire into my veins, into my soul.

"Naz," I whisper his name like a prayer as he settles between my thighs, spreading me wide.

His molten gaze locks with mine as he dips his head, inky black strands of his hair falling over his forehead. His tongue flicks out, the tip of it settling against my clit.

My back bows off the bed, a broken moan tumbling from my lips. This isn't fucking. It's rapture. Divinity.

"That's it, mi amor ," he murmurs, his breath hot against my pussy. "Let me hear you."

I'm the one who was just tried and convicted, sentenced for loving him, but he eats me like a condemned man savoring his last meal, one seeking absolution between my legs.

His lips close around my clit, flicking, laving…reducing me to a sobbing, shuddering mess of ecstasy. The pleasure crests higher, higher, higher. Until it rips me open and shatters me apart.

I fall with his name on my lips, writhing in sweet torment as waves of his devotion crash through me, unmaking me all the way down to my bones.

He works me through it, bringing me back down with crooning praise and the gentle flick of his tongue against my clit.

Tears spill down my cheeks as he kisses his way back up my body, his lips settling against mine. I taste myself on him as his weight blankets me, as he claims my mouth in a kiss so full of possession, of devotion, I forget to breathe, forget my name. I forget everything that came before him and this moment.

The past doesn't hurt when the present is so good I can't even feel it.

"Are you ready for more, little one?" he rasps against my lips, notching his cock at my entrance. His body is tense and rigid above mine, trembling with need. But he doesn't move, doesn't take what he wants. He waits for me to give him permission.

I rock my hips in silent invitation, in a plea. "Please, Naz. More."

His gaze tangles with mine, never deviating as he presses forward, each thrust slow, deliberate…until his hips are flush against mine, and we're both drowning in ecstasy. We groan at the same time. Tremble in unison.

I'm so full of him, so consumed by him, there isn't a single place in me that doesn't bear his brand. That doesn't belong to him.

He presses his forehead to mine, rocking into me just as slowly, just as carefully as he entered me. He ruins me in a way he never has, breaks and unmakes me with each thrust, each touch. And then he puts me back together again with his forehead against mine, his voice rough with emotion. " Te amo , little one. I'll love you forever."

"I love you." Tears spill down my cheeks as I clutch him to me, trying to merge us into one being—not Naz and Brynna, predator and pawn, not the god of war and an Irish princesa , but us, this, one soul permanently joined.

"Then marry me, Brynna. Be my queen."

My gaze flies to his, a startled gasp on my lips. His words so closely mirror my own thoughts, my own desires, for a minute, I think perhaps I've only imagined them. But the way he looks at me, the savage beauty painted across his face as he patiently waits for my answer…he said it. He meant it.

"W-what?" I ask anyway, needing to hear it again.

"Marry me." He brushes his nose against mine. "Be my wife, my queen. The center of my fucking world."

My answer tumbles from my lips without hesitation, without thought. "Yes, Naz. Yes."

Possession flares in his eyes, running so deep it steals my breath. His lips crash against mine, his kiss searing, branding. His control slips as he rocks into me, every thrust deep, devastating.

I wrap my legs around his waist, tilting my hips to take him deeper. Harder. I want to feel every inch of him, want him imprinted on my soul.

"That's it, mi amor ," he groans, lacing our fingers together over my head, his hips snapping against mine. "Fuck me back. Take everything you need from me."

I cry out, digging my heels into his lower back as he grinds against that sensitive spot inside me. Pleasure spirals through me, coiling tighter and tighter. But I need more. I need everything he has.

"Naz," I whimper, clawing down his back. "Please…"

"I know, little one. I know." He slides a hand between our bodies, his fingers clamping around my throat. He squeezes firmly, pinning me beneath him, cutting off my air supply…pushing me closer to the edge. "Let go, Brynna. Let me feel you fall apart on my cock while you're gasping for breath, frantic for it."

His hips snap into me with punishing force, driving his cock deep as his fingers tighten around my throat.

Dark spots dance across my field of vision as my lungs scream for oxygen. The burn is exquisite, the loss of control intoxicating. I'm utterly at his mercy, my body his playground.

"So beautiful," he growls, his amber eyes feral with desire. "Surrendering to me, gasping for me, choking on your need for me."

His words wreck me, splintering me apart. I shatter, convulsing around him. He rips his hand away from my throat, allowing me to pull in a breath…and that sends me rocketing even higher, sends me streaking across the freaking sky like a comet.

Wave after wave of pleasure rolls through me, stealing my breath, my sight, my sense of self. There's only him, only this, only us.

"Fuck, Brynna." His hips jerk once, twice, and then he's coming with a shout. Filling me with his seed, with his claim.

We stay locked together as we come down, both trembling, both gasping for breath. He rains kisses across my face, pouring his devotion, his adoration, down upon me.

"I love you so much, Naz," I breathe, cupping his face in my hands. "So damn much."

"I love you too, mi alma ." He brushes his nose against mine, pulling me into his arms. "Always."

I close my eyes, listening to the wild thrum of his heartbeat beneath my ear. Reveling in the way he holds me so tightly, as if I'm something priceless, something he cherishes.

Tears prick my eyes, my bottom lip quivering. This is worth any price. He is. I'm not wrong about that. About him. I just wish my father could see it too, could see the way he loves me.

"He loves you, mi amor ," Naz whispers as if reading my mind. He strokes his down my back, comforting, soothing. "He loves you."

"I know." I swallow hard, my throat burning. "But that doesn't mean he'll ever forgive me for choosing you."

"He will." He tips my head back, forcing me to look at him. His amber gaze is somber, glinting with determination. "I'll find a way to fix this for you, Brynna. Whatever it takes, little one. I promised you that you wouldn't be hurt. I intend to keep that promise."

I'm not sure how he intends to do that, but I hear the conviction in his voice, the absolute determination to keep his promise to me. I see it reflecting in his eyes.

And I let myself hope.