31. RAVEN

31

RAVEN

Zion finally gets a breather. It’s been two weeks since the attack, but there are no more sporadic revolts.

Shepherd and his men got hundreds of others to join him to clean up the streets. Women are cooperative, wary of the guards, but they are on Shepherd’s side. And the children… Well, the children are learning what’s right or wrong. They follow an example. But it’s easier to follow smiles and kind words than punches and scowls.

Sonny is the leader of the new generation. I’m so proud of the little dude. When he is not at the guest pavilion, he’s at my place. Yeah, yesterday, I finally talked Dr. Hodges into letting me go home.

“Only under Maddy’s twenty-four-seven supervision,” he said.

What could I say? I’m in.

I sit shirtless on the edge of the couch as Maddy is treating my palms. I’m all bandaged—shoulder, neck, hands, like a Pinocchio fresh out of repair. My body hurts everywhere. My skin feels like it’s not my own, stretched over my flesh and bones and hurting at every move. But you know what? It’s sunny outside. A light breeze wafts in through the open balcony doors. The birds are chirping again. Ayana smells like flowers and not fire pits or gunpowder. And my girl sits back on her haunches between my legs, holding my hand, palm up, in hers, and unrolls the bandages as she hums a tune under her breath.

It’s a gorgeous day.

I study the woman who every day reminds me that life is worth living. Her hair is messily pulled back into a ponytail. She looks tired, but her expression is always cheerful. There’s a gold chain around her neck, a ring hanging on it—mine. They cut it with the surgical saw off my finger during the surgery, but Maddy got it welded together and safeguards it for me until I can wear it again.

“Your hands will heal fast,” she says, inspecting my fresh scars. My palms look like dry hamburger meat, so her words are reassuring. “But they will heal faster if you don’t use them much. So, no rough handling.”

That makes me smile. “I never handled you rough, Maddy baby.”

She tsks. “I am not talking about that , Rave.”

But she can’t help the smile that’s forming on her lips. She constantly smiles lately. Isn’t that a sign of the new times?

“How do I go about not using them?” I already want my hands on her.

“For some time, baby, you are at my mercy.” She looks up at me and winks. Her gaze quickly slides down my bare torso and back to my hands.

I close my eyes, taking in the pain that throbs in my palms and the gentle dabbing of Maddy’s fingertips as she applies ointment to my skin. I take a deep breath. Instead of the pain, I concentrate on her touch and the sounds of her movements, her breathing and shifting on the floor.

“You want a painkiller?” she asks.

I open my eyes and shake my head. “Not with you doing this, no.”

There’s my favorite smile again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good.”

When she is done, she rises to her knees and kisses me softly.

“That’s the pain killer,” I say, and she laughs into my neck, and kisses it, and presses tightly against me. Between my legs. And I feel myself swell in my sweatpants.

I can barely turn my head because of the neck wound. The concoction of meds I take helps to manage the pain but also makes my body feel languid, relaxed, and extremely sensitive to everything Maddy does to it. Including standing on her knees between my legs and kissing me.

I rarely wear sweatpants, but I have to so that my knee wounds heal. And it might just become my favorite clothes because my hard-on feels all of her through the soft fabric.

She feels me getting harder and shifts to rub herself against it. “You want the best pain killer?” she murmurs against my mouth.

I smile as I kiss her. “Absolutely.”

“But we’ll have to go to bed so you don’t pass out on me from me working you too hard.”

She means the medical ward two days ago when she gave me a blowjob, and I almost passed out as I came.

I grunt. “Beautiful girl, I got resurrected just to get more of you.”

“Cocky much?”

“No. Just madly in love,” I whisper.

It’s been one day since my return home. Two weeks since the awful night when I thought I could lose my little dude and her. Twenty-three days since she told me she loved me. Five weeks since she kissed me first. Months since she broke my heart, since we made a deal, since I first saw her when she came to the Westside. If I live until I am a hundred years old, I want twenty-eight thousand more days with her, good and bad, all of it. Is that too much to ask?

She stops kissing me abruptly. “Shit, I need to look at your knees and other wounds. I got carried away.”

She bites her lip apologetically. Her beautiful face looks thoughtful as she studies me and runs her fingers through my hair.

Emotions overwhelm me. Must be the drugs that make me all sentimental.

“I love you, Maddy. And I never told you that I will go to the end of the earth for you. You need to know that. I’d give my life for you. I’d give up everything. If you love me, there’s no bigger weapon I’d rather have, and I’m good with dozens. You are the strongest and gentlest person I know. You are wishful kindness, beautiful, beautiful girl.” I smile at her, drowning in her luminous gaze. “Since I first saw you, I wanted you to call me yours.”

She brings her forehead to rest against mine. “You are. You were mine the day I called you Raven.”

I’ll never forget the day when she said my name out loud for the first time. “Outside Bangkok.”

“Yes.”

“You are incredible, Maddy Milena Tsariuk.”

Maybe she takes after her late mother. I wish I knew the woman who raised this beautiful girl. She was also raised among brutality and ruthless power, yet her kind heart didn’t harden.

“I want to make you happy, Maddy. I will love you more than the entire world of people can love you. I will?—”

“ We , Rave. You mean we . We will love each other. We will. You keep acting as if I need convincing. I don’t. I already love you more than the entire world.”

Her smile glows as she takes my chin between her fingers and kisses me.

Someone said that to have the full depth of human emotions, one has to experience war, starvation, and love. I think my cycle is now complete. It’s the latter that I will hold on to forever.