Break Me (Brayshaw, #5)

by Meagan Brandy

To those walking in darkness, may you find your North Star, and one day feel the light.

She was light, and I’m the bastard who led her into darkness. But this girl... she followed with a smile. I told her I break pretty things. She asked me to promise.

Give them more than your body, B, and they’ll shit all over it.

It’s humanity’s biggest downfall—judgment. Expectation.

I have no doubt he threw out the little question with purpose, but he’s the fool if he believes my spending the last several years miles and miles away erases the fact I was born where he was. In a place where loyalty is vital, trust is as highly sought out as it is hard to come by, and family is the key to all.

Maybe that’s twisted, maybe I’m twisted, but I never claimed to be the sane one, that’s Captain. Maddoc is the angry alpha, and me, I’m the fuckin’ wild one. The time bomb. Unpredictable and admittedly, unhinged.

A wolf in a god’s body. A god in his own sense. An anomaly.

Like the North Star in a dark night’s sky, he burns too bright to hide.

A monster in the light. This is the Royce Brayshaw I was told about. The one who transforms in the blink of an eye. Gone is the cocky playboy, and in his place stands a daunting disaster waiting to happen. There’s no stopping what comes

“Because that would mean you know nothing about actual effort, and that’s a shame. Someone with the world at their fingertips should be far more than a bag of jokes and heavy fists.”

Because while the sun and the moon light our lives with a single glance, to feel that light is rare, and something that can’t be robbed from you before it should. Because a feeling comes from the inside, not the out.

Man, he’s seriously on that pro ho level.

The ones we love most, we share nothing less than our hearts, minds, and lives with.

Family by choice. A reminder we bleed like everyone else, even if our world sets us apart from others our age.

like to spin things in my own mind, to believe the choices made for me are made in my favor. That way it sucks a little less than the truth.”

“It’s like you do things without knowing why you do them, but when you stop and realize your moves, you convince yourself the reason behind it is the worst possible one your warped mind can come up with, when I’m pretty sure decency is hidden under all that swag. Somewhere deep down. Like deep, deep down.”

“Let those assholes think what they want. Don’t fight it, try and change it, or hide from it. Do you. They’re gonna judge you either way.”

Don’t underestimate what you don’t know, and once you do, tear it to pieces or tip your fuckin’ hat.

Silence was best. Secrets were necessary. Trust was nonexistent.

“A prince chases power, but has no command of his own, forever waiting for his time to lead. Too blameless to be brutal, too decent to be a dick. He’s weak until he’s forced to make a real move. Good-hearted ‘cause he’s never been in the dark.”

The stars, they’re bright and shining, lighting up the dark sky and giving hope to those of us reaching for more, searching for a sign it’s out there.

“I need you to remember what feels like the end, is always the beginning.

“I want to be the guy a girl closes her eyes at night and sees. The one she wakes thinking about ‘cause she wants to fuck me or fuck with me, fight with me. And not because she wants to gain something or prove something, but because I’m all that she can see and she feels blind without me, even if she wishes she didn’t sometimes. I want to be her light and dark and, yeah, sometimes her fucking nightmare. A fucking king in her eyes and she’d be all those things right back, the queen in mine. Of mine.”

I hate her, she don’t listen. I like her, she challenges me. I can’t stand the sight of her, she distracts me. I can’t function when she’s out of sight, she’s all I want to see.

“My little Tink,” he rasps. “Help me fly...” An unquenchable tingling stirs low in my stomach as he brings himself closer. “Help me fly, ‘cause this lost boy is on his way down, baby girl...” He quiets, his hold tightening.

“You were strong for strangers. You helped them see there’s more. You were the hope to lost souls.”

“And the idea of more, the possibility of hope not lost. You gave them something they could reach for in the dark if all they had was themselves and the sky above them. That’s a fucking lot, Brielle.”

“I love you, best friend. So, so much.”

“Thousands and thousands of specs of silver, too many to forget.” His eyes fall to my lips. “Too many to leave out or let go.” The stars. The shades of his soul. Silver. “See?” I breathe. “There’s so much more than darkness.”

“For the record, as far as I’m concerned you were already mine, and baby girl... know that I’m yours.”

She’s kind when others aren’t, forgiving when she shouldn’t be, because she’s fucking light and she can’t help but shine it over everyone.

“I’m so sick of good and I don’t want calm. I want a hurricane. I need a nightmare and someone to hold my hand through the darkness that follows. I want raw realness and a catastrophic mess because that’s real life. I need something real and honest, hard-living and so true it hurts to think about. I want the pain that comes with something so deep that I bleed when you’re the one who’s cut.”

Loneliness is what brought Brielle here, pain is what drew her to me, and longing is what bonded us together. Need recognizes need.

Brayshaws, we don’t fear, we don’t back down, and we refuse to lose.

Love did make me crazy, it took from me, changed me, but not for the worse. For the better. Brielle, she is my strength, where my bravery will come from, and only when she’s with me, will I ever be free. Free of fear or loss or pain, of regret. To love Brielle Bishop is to breathe deep and full, to be loved by her is something too deep to explain.

“You’re not the darkness I can’t escape, you’re the light I’ll forever follow. Without you, my sight means nothing, because you’re the only thing I want to see.”

He says we’ll forever fly together...among

“We were meant for this. For two,” he whispers. “We were two lost and lonely souls, we died together, as two, and came back as two, stronger than before.”