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One path leads to a life of happiness, albeit without the true love of your soulmates. It’s a good life Cynthia, and if you choose this path, you will be safe. You can practise your craft and heal many, many people, but the Deana-dhe will die. The other path leads to danger, pain and trauma at the hands of the men with skulls for faces. Your strength will be tested, and you will lose something precious to you, but the Deana-dhe will live.
My motherfucking heart hurts. IT HURTS. I want to rage at the world. I want to claw at my skin. I want to rip open my ribcage, pull my beating heart from my chest and crush it in my hands. I want to go back to that night when those bastards took her from me and kill them all. I want to kill them all. But more than that, I want Cyn. I want her gentle touch and her beautiful smile. I want her angry tongue and her stinging bite. I want her words of wisdom and sharp wit. I want her pretty pussy and her sexy mouth. I want her sweet, sweet voice. I want her.
“I WANT CYN!” I shout, fucking pain like nothing I’ve felt before buckling my knees.
“They punched her in the face,” I continue, unable to stop myself now that I’ve started. Like a bottle of uncorked champagne the words froth and fizz, tumbling from my lips in angry little bursts. “They dragged her from the room by her fucking hair, but not before they groped at her breasts and punched her in the face. They fucking abused her right in front of me and I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it!”
“My immediate reaction to finding out that she lied to us in order to protect Christy and The Masks was anger. I was angry because I believed we deserved her love and affection, her loyalty, but I was wrong. We didn’t deserve it. We haven’t even earned it yet.”
“Then what?” Arden asks, blowing out a shaky breath. “Then we earn Cyn’s love,” I say. “If that means getting on our knees and begging for forgiveness every fucking day for the rest of our lives, then we do it. If that means giving her exactly what she needs, what she wants, we’ll do it. Agreed?”
“She was taken from me,” Carrick cries, shattering with grief beneath me.
Deep down inside, I know who he is. I recognise him. Yet, I can’t seem to bring myself to acknowledge that fact. I’m both within my body, but separate from it. Feeling and unfeeling. Aware and unaware. Both me and not me. I can’t think too deeply or remember too much. There's something agonising, something that will break me, just out of reach. I don't want to remember.
“She will heal. She will come back to you. Cyn is strong,”
Yes. Her choice to leave with you that night saved your lives, and now your choice to let her go with them,” Christy says, looking pointedly at Connall, “Will save hers.”
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
I wish he knew. I wish they knew that I need their touch to keep me with them.
There are no words. Not even the attempt at any. If speaking was the only thing she wasn't able or willing to do, I could live with that. But seeing her like this. So fucking numb. Completely and utterly checked out. That kills me.
"None of us are equipped to deal with this, Arden. Cyn was the one who was capable of healing others, not us. Who the fuck do we think we are?" I reply with frustration. Arden's expression darkens, his fingers tightening around her recipe book. "We're the men who love her and we're going to be the men who'll heal her, understand?"
"I need you to wash away every memory of his touch,"
I was afraid of dying, afraid of falling, Afraid of loving, silently grieving But you came along, healing. Stealing my heart...
"To bury myself inside of you. To connect not just my body, but my soul with yours. I've never needed anything more in my life. It's wrong to want that after what he did to you, after what I failed to do."
“This is our future, tomorrow and the next day, and the day after. This is where we get to love you every day for the rest of our lives.”
“Cras es noster… Tomorrow is ours.”
“I should be able to control myself around you, but fuck Cyn, when you smile like that, laugh like that, I just want to take you in my arms. I want to lose myself in you. I just want to fucking love you, Cyn.”
“I’m going to make you come so hard, our plants will grow with your pleasure running through their stems. They’ll be so fucking beautiful, Cyn. They’ll be a reminder of how we made love in the dirt with a storm raging around us. They’ll be a reminder of how we chose to live,”
“Do that again. Smile,”
They're both filthy, in the best possible way. There's something so incredibly raw about the fact they fucked in the garden whilst a thunderstorm raged overhead. I've got to hand it to Arden, he certainly knows how to give a memorable fuck.
“All these years before you, when we’ve fucked other women, fucked each other, we thought of you. We could never admit it to ourselves, to each other, but you were always there, tucked deep inside our hearts. Ours souls bound to yours,” Carrick continues, fucking her as tears fall from her eyes. “You were there every second of every day. In every breath, in every kiss, in every stroke of our fists, every lick of our tongues. You were never a curse, Cyn. You were always the cure to our brokenness. I will love you forever, my beautiful witch.”
If you were an outsider looking in with only their reputation as reference, you would see three incredibly dark, troubled men standing beside me. But I know differently. I know they've become more than the product of their abusive pasts. That they've learned how to be human, how to have empathy, how to be compassionate, to live in kindness, and to love. It's partly because of them that I'm here today, but it’s a hell of a lot more to do with Christy that they’ve become the good, kind, empathetic men they are now.
“At some point in the future, you’re going to run and we’re going to chase you,” he says, his voice a dark rumble of need that spills into the air between us. “And what will happen when you catch me?” Cyn asks, her lips parting on a ragged breath as Arden pins her against the door with his body. “We’re going to fuck you until you see stars, and whilst we do that we’re going to put a baby in your belly.” “Fuck, yes,” Lorcan and I agree in unison. “A baby?” she whispers. “I want us to make a family of our own, Cyn,”
"We're called the Deana-dhe not just because the fields where we grew up were filled with butterflies as beautiful as this one and the name reminded us of home, but because Deana-dhe literally translates to butterfly and fire. The butterfly symbolises the soul, and fire is transformation. You witnessed us becoming the Deana-dhe. You knew us before we stepped into that role, and you know us as the men we are today. You survived the chaotic fire of our transformation, and look at you now—stronger and more courageous than ever, as beautiful as this butterfly,”
“Every time you wear this brooch remember, that no matter what happens or wherever life takes us, our love is always here, as strong and as beautiful as this butterfly. You are mine forever, Cyn… Ours. Always have been… Always will be.”
Arden lets out a shaky breath, speaking first. "I was never supposed to fall in love with an O'Farrell," he laughs, shaking his head, his amber eyes shining like liquid gold. "I pushed you away. I ran from the connection I felt the second you walked into your bedroom at Silver Oaks. I was a kid in pain, who hurt, but thanks to you, I'm a man who can love, and fuck, Cyn, I love you so damn much. I can't wait to build a home here with you. To grow a family so that when we're gone, our love will live on in them." I give him a watery smile, unable to respond because I'm so filled to the brim with
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“It's time for you to run.”
