Released(Devil's Blaze MC 3)(63)

Bile rises in my throat as I see the horrible marks that scar her delicate skin. They move up her stomach and over her chest and from her elbows down. They’re crude and some are much worse than others. The worse ones are on her stomach. I figure the majority of that is because she was pregnant at the time. I tap down my anger, wishing I had someone in my grasp to take out my anger on, to make them feel the pain that my woman obviously endured. I push that away for now, though. Now’s not the time for anger. I will do that when Beth isn’t around to see it. Now, I just need to concentrate on Beth and making her feel good—reassuring her.

I drop to my knees quietly in front of her. Her eyes are still tightly squeezed shut. I want to scream at the injustice of everything she’s gone through—of everything we’ve gone through. Instead, I put my hands on her hips, squeezing her reassuringly.

She jumps in surprise, her hands coming to cover mine.

“Mi pobre tesoro,” I whisper… my poor treasure. A better man would have protected her more. She slowly opens her eyes and I see the dread there. Does she expect to see revulsion? There can be none. This is my woman.

I don’t give a fuck about the scars.

“Skull…” she whispers pleadingly. “I can have surgery. The worst of them could be gone… I…”

I pull her down to the floor with me, and before she can say anything else, I stop her with a kiss. It’s a pressing of lips, firm and hard, a reassuring touch. A vow to her. It’s salty from her tears and the memory of it bores into my soul. Honestly, they’re not all her tears. They freely roll down my own face as I imagine the hell that she has lived through. Her little hand comes out and tries to dry them from my face, shaking as she does so.

“Is this why you were afraid to come home to me, mi cielo?” I ask her, my voice hoarse with emotion.

“Skull…”

“Tell me, Beth. Let it out and we’ll put it behind us. It will be gone.”

“Skull, even if I have surgery, they will never be gone, not completely.”

“Mi cielo, you need to listen to me. I want you to watch my face so you believe what I am saying. I don’t give a fuck about the scars except that you were hurt and I failed to keep you safe.”

“Skull, it wasn’t you. I made choices. I…”

“Saved your sister,” I finally acknowledge, and here on my knees my face in tears, I finally understand the choices she made. I release the anger I’ve been holding inside. Beth closes her eyes once again and she whispers words that are deeply soaked with pain and guilt. It’s so thick I can hear it with every syllable.

“And nearly destroyed the man I love.”

“You give me life, mi cielo. Your heart is so big, so full of love… that it makes mine beat. You gave me life, you gave our daughter life…”

“Skull…”

“You kept her safe and you found your way back to me. You made it in time to save me again, mi cielo. That’s what those scars mean to me.”

“I let fear make me run,” she whispers.

“I won’t lie to you, mi cielo, not now. That’s the hardest part for me, but now I can mostly understand it.”

“How? I let my fear of you seeing me, of…”

“You are young, mi cielo, and you were scared.”

“I’m…”

I interrupt her, not wanting her to say anything else. “You saw those damn pictures Pistol fabricated and what confidence you had in us fled.”

“But…”

“Bottom line, mi cielo, it just doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Skull…”

“Do you want to hold the choices I made while you were gone and the threats and anger I had when I first saw you against me?”

“Of course not, but…”

“It is the same for me, mi cielo. I finally have you back and I’m not going to let our past come in and destroy the life we are meant to have. From now on, we think only of the future.”

“I love you, Skull,” she tells me. Her body is trembling and there are so many tears falling from her face it hurts me, but she’s never been more beautiful.

I pull her to the floor, gently kissing the largest of scars on her stomach. “Tell me about this one, mi cielo.”

“Skull… I don’t want to…”

“Tell me and let the pain out. Let me kiss them away,” I tell her.

“This was the first one…”

“And…” I prompt her when she seems lost in thought.

“Katie’s leg…” she starts brokenly. “The skin grafts from the explosion were still raw. I did the best I could to keep them clean, but they weren’t healing properly. Redmond wasn’t letting me have the proper bandages, and she needed medical care. Matthew came in one day and demanded I brand the wound closed. He even brought the branding iron and started a fire in the fireplace. When I refused, he threatened to do it himself… When I begged him not to…”