39. Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

H er heart stilled in her chest.

Thomas cared enough to save her, to set her on this ship with him—that was good.

The rage-filled look on his face at the moment—that was bad.

“Thomas—I know—I cannot tell you how it destroyed me, seeing you?—”

“Stop. Just stop, Izzie.” His hand dropped from the ceiling and he stepped backward, away from her, leaning against the door of the room.

He heaved a breath, his fingers rubbing across his eyes, then rumpling through his hair. His hazel eyes lifted to her. “When I saw you on that ship with your brother.” He paused, his lip pulling back in a snarl, and he shook his head. “Fear—and rage—like I didn’t know existed ran through me. I knew the monsters they were—and you were there. In their fucking clutches. I thought they got you because of me and I couldn’t live with the thought of what they were to do with you. And then that fucking bastard called you his sister. His sister .”

She winced. “And then I cracked a pistol across your head.”

His glare sliced her in two. “You did.”

Her right fingertips started picking at the edge of the wool blanket on the bed. “I didn’t know what to do—I just needed them to stop carving into your arm. It was all I could think to do. I couldn’t fight them.”

Unmoved, his arms folded across his chest. “Are you playing me for a fool now?”

His voice hard and callous, but between the words, something vulnerable, like he wanted to believe her but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

He’d suffered so much by her family’s hand, she couldn’t blame him for his skepticism.

Her eyes closed, her head shaking. “Would you even believe me if I told you the truth?”

“There was a point, early on, where I finally figured you out. You are incapable of telling me lies. Bending the truth, yes. But at the heart of everything you’ve ever said to me, was truth. I know that. I don’t how, but I do.” He unthreaded his arms and moved across the cabin to her. Setting his forefinger under her chin, he lifted her face to him. “Try me.”

At that, a sob caught in her throat. His understanding almost too much for her to comprehend.

Her voice shaking, she stared up at him. “I saw my brother in Edinburgh—at the end of that alleyway where those men were attacking you. I saw him, but I convinced myself I hadn’t. I haven’t seen him in seven years—I was sure it was an illusion. I didn’t think any more on it until he came out of the woods to me at Ravenstone. And I was so afraid of him. Of what he would do to you.”

His hand dropped away from her face. “Did you know he was one of the men that tortured me? The main one?”

“No—no—never. Not until he told me who you were—that you killed our mother.”

His brow furrowed, his head shaking. “I never—how did I do that?”

She swallowed hard. “When that rope around your neck broke and you fell, you landed on the ground, rolling into the stump she was standing on. It flew out from under her feet and she dropped, her neck snapping instantly.”

His look jerked up, his stare at the wall behind her head as he bit the center of his bottom lip, shaking his head. “Fuck. I killed your mother.”

“No.” She grabbed his wrists. “I was there—I saw it and I don’t blame you. I blame my waste of a father. He slipped that noose around her neck.”

“Why? Why did you go with your brother? Why not come to me?”

“He said he would kill you if I didn’t go with him. So I did.”

“Hell.” His jaw shifted to the side. “You thought you were saving me.”

“You may not believe it, Thomas, but it is all I ever wanted to do. Save you.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his voice low, raw, when he finally spoke. “I know. I do.”

“Do you?”

“You killed your brother and your father to save me, so yes. Yes, I do believe you.”

She gasped an intake of breath, her body shaking with it and her eyes closed, relief flooding through her. She opened her eyes, only to see the long scab along his forearm where her brother had been carving into his bone.

The softest whimper came from her throat and her thumb moved up from his wrist to trace the ragged skin. “There will be new scars on you.”

“Aye. There will be.”

Tears flooded her lower lashes, wanting to erase this one, erase all of the marks her horrendous family had put on him.

But there was no way to do it. No way to erase what her blood had done to him.

Silently, he dropped to his knees in front of her, making them eye-to-eye, and he lifted his thumbs, brushing them gently under her lower lashes to wipe the tears clean, his hands cupping her face. “They are not your scars to own, Iz. You did not cause them.”

“But my family—my family has been the cause of all your pain.”

His face turned to steel, his hazel eyes full of ironclad resolve. “Your family is me. Me and Callum and Nemity. We are your family.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“But—”

“No—you were never your family, and they were never you. Do not take their sins on as your own. You are my family. My everything. And we only need to look forward. The future.”

“You…” The word choked out, sudden wonder in her eyes.

“Me, what?”

“You just said we only look forward. You said the future.”

“And?”

Her eyes closed, tears threatening again. “And I never thought I’d hear you say that word with yourself attached to it.”

A smile, slow and sad and desperate to not be misplaced crawled onto his face. “I never had so much to lose.” His fingers sank backward into her hair. “If looking to the future is what it takes to keep you, I’ll do it. Every day, thanking the heavens that breath is in my lungs.”

Looking in his eyes, she wanted this—wanted his words so badly. Yet she couldn’t accept them—not fully. “But what about your reservations? The whole reason you wanted me gone from Ravenstone—because you don’t trust yourself.”

He exhaled, his head bowing for a long moment. His look slowly lifted to her. “When I saw you outside the prison in the rain, standing there, agonized, blood dripping from your blades. You killed your own family for me. For me.” His voice choked and he gave a slight shake of his head. “I realized in that moment that I’d been stupid. That you possess more fortitude than a hundred men combined. You will stave off any tragedy I think to create by sheer will alone. Sheer, stubborn will. That is what I have to trust. I have to trust you.”

She drew a shaking breath. “And if I were to die?”

“Then I better keep breathing for our children.”

“Children?”

“I don’t just want you at Ravenstone, Iz. I want you as mine. I want my babes to be in your belly. I want to belong—finally belong to someone—you—because you fit me in a way that makes me feel whole. And I think I do the same for you.”

Tears welling in her eyes, her throat closed up, words not able to make it onto her tongue.

His look on her intense, he shook his head, anxious. “Forgive me. I know I do not do this well. I am not a man with pretty words for you. Words that make any sense.”

She forced air onto her tongue, her head leaning forward to meet his. “I don’t need words.”

“What do you need?”

“I need your good ear.”

He chuckled as she slid her cheek along his until her lips were brushing against his right earlobe. “Just you. I love you, Thomas. I have for far longer than I want to admit. You are what I need.”

She pulled back to look him in the eye. “But what if I died and there were no children?”

His lips pulled to the side, devious. “I was rather hoping I’d already set one deep within your womb.”

She chuckled. “And if not?”

He shrugged. “Then Nemity better hire me another guardian.”

Her eyes flew wide, her stare on him dumbstruck.

He squeezed her waist, a wicked smile on his face. “I jest. No one could replace you—ever. I just don’t want you to worry on me.”

There—a devilish twinkle in his eyes she’d never seen before. “I’ve never heard you jest.” She shook her head, her smile holding awe. “Apparently, there is much more of you I have yet to discover.”

“It will be a lifetime’s worth.” He leaned forward, kissing her. “You’ve barely begun to scratch the surface.”

She laughed, her hands sinking in along his neck, threading through his dark hair, then slipping down to wrap around his waist. “I look forward to the adventure.”

Her face buried into his neck, inhaling the scent of him. The scent that she never wanted to be without again.

“Ouch.” The word squeaked out of him gruff, like he didn’t want to utter it but had finally broken and admitted to it.

“Your ribs. Sorry.” She loosened her hold on him, pulling back, but he stopped her, his fingers digging into the back of her head.

“No, you stay right where you are. I’ll take the pain if it’s your arms around me.”

She chuckled. “Or how about I resist manhandling you for a few weeks.”

He grunted. “That will also do. Though there are certain parts of me that would appreciate your selective manhandling.” He pulled back, moving his left hand gently down to the bandages on her side. “Though only once you can move appropriately as well.”

She grinned. “We are a sorry pair.”

“We are a lucky pair. I never knew how much so. I love you, Iz.”

The words reflected bright in his hazel eyes, the slices of green alive and swirling with the promise of life ahead.

All she had ever wanted for him. All she wanted for herself.