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For those who have a weak spot for the wounded souls.
I’m an ex-criminal, now a secret soldier. Not exactly something that’s easy to accept about yourself when you’ve lost all of your memories.
Dark Forces soldiers are not supposed to interact with the “upstairs” soldiers for any reason. Especially to fight.
Be wary. The longer you see what’s under the covers, the more monsters you realize have been beside you. Worse yet, inside you. One person can wear as many as five faces. Which one will give them away?
The others are afraid of the aftermath. They still have freedom they reach for. I have nothing. I am nothing.
“That’s why. I just sort of like the idea that we aren’t only what is apparent on the outside. Beneath, we are more, waiting to grow maybe.”
The executioner lives deep in her marrow. A flicker of hope wells inside me. Please remember.
A murderer longing to be caught and caged. One that dreamed of something more.
I would do anything for her. Even if she never remembers my love for her.
The trouble with being in the Dark Forces is that we were all horrible people before, but we’re even worse now.
It sounds so innocent when I say it like that. It sounds like there weren’t teeth strewn over the asphalt, and blood and flesh weren’t caked into the pores of the cinder block walls. “By ‘beaten to a pulp’ you mean that you ground their faces into mush and cartilage against the cement, right?” he remarks flatly. I sit straight up and give him a reluctant stare. “It was that bad, wasn’t it?” He smiles grimly and flicks my forehead. “It was.”
Sad things usually are quite beautiful, after all.
I see it in his eyes—the moment he surrenders to his lust. The ice he keeps set in his soul melts and his lashes lower, hooding his gaze. He stares upon me like there is no separation between light and dark, as if we truly are two soldiers cursed to circle one another dangerously, only to secretly meet at dusk and let the blood on our hands disappear with the sun.
“How did it feel to come at my mercy, love?”
“Come here, take me in your mouth so I can fuck all your questions away.”
His fingers curl around the base of my braids. What little breath I had is stolen away as he rams his hips into my face.
Her hair unbraided and loose around her pillow. God, I’ll never get tired of being able to see like this in the dark.
We were issued the same skull face pieces from the trials. Mori and Morphine. A pair. I smeared them with beige war paint so that we blend seamlessly in with the desert terrain.
The pink smoke that rolls from the flare and bursts into the sky above her is like blush on roses. Her long, riotous braids whip behind her like a breath of chaos. Emery. You magnificent, wondrous thing.
All I see is her as she struts right up to me, dirt on her mask already, fire burning the world behind her, and absolute mania behind those lovely eyes.
The explosion shakes the ground and bright warm colors lash out around us, lighting up those sage eyes of his I find so lovely. Freeze time right here, forever, I silently wish.
Her face is expressionless, only the drive to kill is reflected through her eyes. “You’d be doing me a favor, love,” I say gently as I brush my thumb over her chapped lips. The energy flees my flesh and my arm drops back down to my side. Darkness clouds my sight once more. Please kill me, Emery.
My eyes lift to a mirror at the back wall, my reflection shows a primed soldier in expensive clothing. Her eyes are jaded. I hate the woman I see.
“As mad as I am that you pushed me away, not very many people get to fall in love with the same crazy person twice.”
“I love you. I love every wrong thing you’ve done, every right.
I’m nothing without her. She’s every part of me I once lost. Every flower in my field of death.
I am only a wicked man filled with demons, but she makes me feel like the sea on a stormless night—calm and clear.
Her lack of love and emotional abandonment made me a depressed artist; my father’s cold heart made me a killer. Reed, however, made me the executioner that will be remembered. The perfect cocktail to make monsters.
“They took my hair because they knew I loved it, but I couldn’t shed a single tear over something as fickle as hair when what I truly loved was you. They can take everything from me as long as it isn’t you,” I murmur as I stare into his eyes and cup his cheek with my palm.
“You’re not allowed to love someone as monstrous as me, Em. Not after everything I’ve done,”
His lips move to my shoulder as he kneads one breast while his other hand slowly shifts down to my center. He begins to pump his hips and fucks my slit. Another moan rolls up my throat. God, how I’ve missed his attention.
“Oh, I love when my little soldier is so fucking wet for me,” he says in a seductive tone that makes the ache grow in my lower stomach.
This is the most intimate he’s ever been. The euphoric sensation of two damaged-beyond-repair people coming together is beautiful in its own sense. I wish I knew if he’s made peace with his reluctance to let others get close to him. To care about him. It melts my heart that he’s allowing himself to have this soft, endearing moment with me.
“I’d pursue you to no end. You are the only home I’ve ever truly known,” he murmurs against my lips. “And I’d fall in love with you over and over, should I forget. I would always find solace in your eyes. Love inside your heart.”
He’s traveled for boundless years, searching for a warm place to rest for as long as I have. Two different soldiers, two torturous stories, one ending.
The darkness is filled with only our breaths of pleasure and whispers of love.
We remain connected as we take each other in, wondering where we will ever be able to root our love in a place as ruthless and unforgiving as the Dark Forces.
“Oh my God, Cameron.” Her breaths are shortened. She digs her fingernails into my neck and the pressure feels so fucking good. “The only thing God ever did for me was give me a big dick,”
“You are our lethal dose of pink morphine. Take them all out, okay? Promise, for all of us.”
“You make me fucking crazy, you know that?” he says in a lethal tone over my lips.
“You’re already insane, remember?” I whisper back.
“Oh, baby, if you’re well-behaved then I’ll show you what a goddess-worshipping man like me will do to you.”
Blood fills his scarred eye, taking me back to the trials, reminding me that no matter how much we don’t feel, we’re only human. We’re only lovely monsters made of flesh and bone.
