Forged: A Devil's Spawn MC Novel (9 page)

It took me three weeks of doing shit I’d never done before, and would never do again for any other woman to win her over. Flowers, chocolates, sappy love notes, and trinkets, but in the end she forgave me and I never looked back. Not once did I begrudge having to work at it to get her back. My woman is stubborn as hell, and she may not have made it easy for me, but the fight was worth it, because when I had her it was magnificent.

I eventually accepted I’d never know the origin of her scars. I didn’t like it and I wished someday she’d tell me, but I stopped pushing. After that we fell into the beautiful kind of life I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have, and it wasn’t until the clusterfuck with Stacey that we ran into problems even close to the ones we had during our rocky start.

Our life wasn’t without its ups and downs though. We fought. She cried. I yelled. But every time, before we went to bed, we kissed and made up without fail, so in my book it was all good. It was as close to perfection as you can get…Until it wasn’t. And what Priest had just told me took care of that.

“No, I didn’t lose my mind…

It got scared and ran away screaming.”

-
                    
Rotten eCard

Saint saying Elias’s name simultaneously chilled me to the bone and sent my blood boiling. I never wanted to hear that monsters name ever again, let alone have it fall from the lips of my husband. Emotions I wasn’t ready to address, nor did I think I ever would be, bombarded me. My only escape was the blissful darkness I fell into only seconds later.

Elias ‘Demon’ Walker is my Uncle by blood. My tormentor too, but I’m sure you already worked that one out for yourselves. Once, a long time ago, I loved him fiercely, almost as much as my Dad, but then one day that all changed. I went from hero worshipping him to despising him in the matter of a day. I’d never had cause to distrust him before, so I didn’t pick up on any signs that would alert me he was any danger to me. He had always just been my Uncle Eli. That was until he took on another name, one very similar to his club name in fact.

When I was eight years old I wanted to be a ballerina. Seriously, what little girl hasn’t had that dream at one time or another? My mom enrolled me in dance classes, dropping me off and picking me up after every lesson. One afternoon mom got stuck picking Priss up from cheerleading because their practice session had run over, and asked Uncle Eli to collect me. I was excited to see him so I could show off what I’d learned in class that day, and like always, he was more than happy to watch, encouraging me the whole time.

Taking me back to his place, that was where he told me mom was picking me up from, wasn’t an odd because I often spent time there. Most of that time either Priss, mom, or dad were with me, but I loved my Uncle so much that any time I got to spend with him alone I cherished. That day something was off with him though. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something in the distant way he answered my questions and the way he was staring at me made me uneasy. But at the tender age of eight, when an adult tells you they’re fine, that everything is okay, you blindly, and stupidly believe them. And that wasn’t any different for me. I didn’t even think to question he wasn’t telling me the truth. Why would I?

A lot of that first day is still a blur to me. Things happened so quickly that I have trouble dissecting reality from the all-encompassing terror I felt. Going inside, dropping my backpack at the door like always, and heading to the kitchen for a snack, I was brought up short when Uncle Eli wrapped his huge hand around my bicep. He roughly yanked me to an abrupt stop that had my body colliding with the wall, sending the photo frames hanging on it crashing to the floor.

At this point I wasn’t scared or hurt. I was confused as to why he looked so angry with me, and upset that I’d done something to make him mad at me, but not scared. In the eyes of an eight-year old that worshiped the ground he walked on, upsetting my Uncle was the last thing I wanted to do. I apologized profusely, begging him not to be angry with me, and promising to not do whatever had upset him again, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. Uncle Eli wasn’t listening, instead he was glaring at me with such menace that I began to retreat into my own head.

This was a problem for me. When things got too overwhelming, or I didn’t know how to deal with something I tended to go inside myself until I felt it was safe to come out or someone drew me out. Either way, it was a common reaction to stress for me. One that happened a little too frequently if you were to ask my dad. For me it was just a way to sort things out. I’d always been more of a thinker than a talker, and I didn’t really see that changing. Regardless that this was part of me, it was in my make-up to be like this, my dad told me I would have to try harder to let people in. That I had to let people help me sometimes. I still hadn’t mastered that skill, even though I was trying, but at that moment in time I was glad I hadn’t.

Uncle Eli dragged me down the hall behind him, he was still gentle enough with his grip that it didn’t hurt per se, but I knew I couldn’t get free even if I tried with all my might. Maybe that’s what I should have done. Fought harder for him to let me go, but I didn’t. Call it terror, panic, or shock, whatever you like, but I didn’t fight him. I let him take me to his room, sit me on the edge of his huge bed, and I said not a word when he went to the chest he kept in the bottom of his closet and pulled out something long, shiny, and deadly.

It’s funny what you notice when you’re in a life threatening or stressful situation. It’s as if your mind protects you from trauma, replacing fear inducing visions with ones that intrigue you instead. Things like; were beds really this big? How did he fit it through the front door of his house? Because honestly, it was a really, really, big bed. It had to have been custom made for him. A California King, and then some. See, strange.

Stripping his hunting knife from its sheath, Uncle Eli walked toward me with great big strides, eating up the distance between us in seconds. I still wasn’t scared though. No, it had gone way past that. Now, I was freaking terrified. The large blade reflected light off the walls, so that strips of light illuminated the usually gloomy grey of his bedroom. Again, I thought it strange that my mind wandered to thinking; how could such beauty be created by something so sinister?

Then I remember nothing but the slice of the blade searing the tender skin on the inside of my thigh. Over and over again, the burning agony of it tearing through my flesh as I screamed for him to stop. That’s what I remember the most about that day. That I begged and cried for my Uncle to let me go, but that he didn’t listen. He didn’t flinch once at my pleas that became nothing more than pitiful cries. They began to ebb to whimpers after more than ten minutes of the most intense pain I’d ever felt, and I just knew that I’d never be the same. Never again.

A large section of both of my upper inner-thighs was bleeding profusely. Caused by the perfectly straight lines crisscrossed over them that he’d carved permanently into my skin. I knew they would never heal completely. I also knew I would be forever scarred by his anger. Not only by his blade, but by the ability to trust that he’d stolen from me.

That wasn’t the only time it happened. There were so many more times over the years that I’d lost count. So many that I’d tried in vain to erase from my memory. In the beginning I threatened to tell my dad, my mom, and Uncle Priest, but at Eli’s threat to hurt Priss the same way as he was hurting me, I stayed quiet. I wouldn’t let him hurt her. More than that, I couldn’t. It didn’t matter what happened to me, as long as Priss stayed safe and unharmed everything would be okay. He knew that too. Eli knew she was the only leverage he had on me. That there was nothing else he could use to keep me quiet, available, and at his mercy. He utilized that threat often. Sparing none of the details when he explicitly described what he would do to my sister if I ever breathed a word to anyone.

No less than twenty incisions marred my body after that first day. The helplessness, desperation, and fear of how I’d hide them from the people I loved struck deep. But I knew I would. I knew I would find a way to keep them hidden from sight no matter what.

Being young, I didn’t know how I’d stop the bleeding either. Eli threw a towel at me after he was done wiping his knife on it, and told me to clean myself up. That was it. No offers of help, not that I would have willingly let him touch me after that anyway. But there was nothing. Just clean yourself up, then he left, and I was finally alone.

The towel may have been a plush, fluffy one, but it abraded my ruined skin like sandpaper. The stinging pain it caused everywhere I gently wiped, brought fresh tears to my eyes, which meant it took far longer than Eli expected for me to make myself what he called presentable again. He had dragged me out of the bathroom by my hair telling me I was taking too long, that someone was going to get suspicious if I didn’t hurry, and I couldn’t help the twinge of hope I felt that someone would indeed come looking for me. That didn’t happen though, and it never would. No one found out about what he did to me, ever. Not until now.

In the darkness there was one thing I was grateful for. I was grateful he didn’t take my innocence. Not that day, or any day after. There were times when I thought he would. Times he couldn’t hide his excitement. He was turned on by the torture he was inflicting on me, but he didn’t take it further. While that may have given me a modicum of relief, what he did was already bad enough without shattering the remnants of my soul by violating me further. Because in my mind there’s nothing worse that could happen to a woman than that. Nothing. This I could deal with. Barely, but I could. But that…never. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to overcome something as horrific as being raped. Even as a child I knew that about myself.

Eventually the hundreds of slices turned to cuts that began to scab over. Then they transformed into thin silvery-white scars, a patchwork across my upper thighs. I would look at those marks, to be honest I still occasionally do, and wonder if the scars on my soul would ever heal as well as they did. I doubted it, highly doubted it, but I still prayed that one day someone would love me regardless of my disfigurement. Because that’s how I saw myself now, as disfigured. The only thing I was left unsure of was if those scars made me as ugly as they are. In time, as I grew up and became more at ease with who I am as a person I recognized they didn’t define me, but they definitely made up
part
of who I am. I learned to accept they would never go away, and that I would have to be okay with that.

I wouldn’t realize it then, not for many years come either, but there was something wrong with Eli. Very, very, horribly wrong. Not that it excused what he did to me, far from it. Nothing could excuse that, but knowing what I do now, if I could hazard a guess, his behavior never changed in the time he was gone, nor would it ever.

I didn’t tell anyone about what went on during that period of my life, and even I could see I desperately needed help sorting out the conflicting emotions and instability I was feeling. I was twelve years old, in the throes of puberty, and confused beyond belief. I didn’t have support, because I wouldn’t allow myself to seek it, so when normal daily life started proving more and more of a struggle I turned to the only thing I knew. I shut down, hibernated in my head, and tried to wait the turmoil out. When that didn’t work I did the next best thing. I spent endless hours with my head buried in books trying to work out how to help myself.

The day my Dad told me Eli had disappeared into thin air, not even the club knew where he’d gone, was the best day of my young life. The only thing I felt at the knowledge he was gone, that my four-year ordeal was over, was overwhelming relief. If I could have, I’d have sunk to my knees and praised whoever was looking out for me the second dad told me that.

But my relief was short lived, because even though Eli wasn’t around anymore, that didn’t stop the terrifying nightmares that woke me every night. It didn’t stop the cold sweats and shudders that wracked my body, or the near panic attacks I had at the feeling someone was watching me on my way to school. I was always looking over my shoulder scared he would appear out of thin air signaling my torture would begin again. It wasn’t until I turned fifteen that something bigger, something far more traumatic took over most of the darkness he’d left behind. However, not even my parents ‘death’, could completely banish the memories seemingly set on repeat in my head.

I resigned myself to the realization nothing would be able to erase him, and set out to find a way to cope. What I didn’t know was that Tobias ‘Saint’ Phillips was just around the corner. I didn’t seek him out, but nevertheless he rode into my life on a gleaming black, silver, and chrome beast, and became my Prince in leather and denim.

He wasn’t your typical Prince though. No, not him. He wasn’t charming in the slightest. He was sarcastic and stand-offish. He didn’t woo me or buy me flowers. He bought me a helmet for when we rode on his bike, demanding I wear it or he’d leave me behind. He wasn’t romantic or overly affectionate, but when I was with him I knew I had him. All of him. I had him in a way that I knew would be forever if I wanted it. And I did, desperately. I wanted forever with the man who stole my heart within minutes of meeting him, and I promised myself I would do anything I could to keep him, even if that meant
never
telling him about my past. Because I wouldn’t do that. I refused to taint the beauty we had by infecting him with the filth of a time and a man best forgotten.

But now, looking into my husbands pained eyes, I knew with every fiber of my being I’d made the wrong decision.

“Why, Tilly? Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve hunted the motherfucker down and killed him. I would’ve made him pay for what he did to you, baby,” Saint rasps. His voice is hoarse and I can see the gathering wetness in his eyes. This though, this right here is why I never wanted him to know. I didn’t want to see the look of agony and helplessness on his handsome face. He didn’t deserve the pain this would surely cause him. My husband deserved a beautiful life after losing his sister so young. Not one filled with a damaged woman who need a hero to save her. A woman that couldn’t give him the easy life I knew deep down he desired.