Wrath (27 page)

Aidan

Fuck this shit.

I gripped my handlebars a little bit tighter. My brain was drowning in a rush of anger and frustration. So I did the one thing I knew would bring me clarity.

I rode.

I tore off down the highway. The tight, winding turns of North Braddock and Forest Hills were nothing for me. Each sharp turn was like fresh air in my lungs, each dip and straightway a thrill. I used the feeling to push me forward.

I was so damn tired of being around people. And I was so tired of being pissed with Emma.

Her voicemail burned inside my head.

“
I need you
.”

She needed me. Wanted me. But she had too much power over me already. I wasn’t going to be at her beck and call. She needed think about it for a little bit.

Because if she ever left me again, it would be the last time. Just the idea of doing all this over again made me want to scream and drive right into the median.

I wanted to make this right, but she had been so stubborn. I didn’t know what to do to make her understand. It was so simple to me. I needed Fire and Steel. I needed her.

I wanted to go to her, but knew I’d fuck it up if I went while I was this messed up.

I needed to clear my mind.

So I drove.

I tore down the highway on my Chieftain, passing cars, and using the space between them as my own personal lane. It was reckless, it was stupid, but I needed it.

Chaos was the only thing that brought me clarity. It was the only thing that I could rely on when I felt like this.

I came back to this every time. Something got fucked up – I threw myself into an adrenaline rush. I beat the monster back the only way I knew how. And usually, it worked. When it had gone sour, I’d been lucky.

I’d always been lucky…

When I reached the North Versailles bridge, I sighed deeply. The strong cross winds blew into me, forcing me to brace if I wanted to stay upright.

My muscles burned and my joints started to ache as I pushed through it. And when I crossed over the bridge and into North Versailles, I felt a bit better. As if I’d burned away some of the chaos. A row of plazas popped up along the side of the road, oases in the desert.

I let on the gas as I came to an empty stretch of road and took off down the highway.

The driver in the blue pea shooter must not have seen me.

I saw the car pull out just in time to make a decision.

I could either run head into the vehicle head first, or make a hard right into the parking lot it came out of. I was in deep shit either way.

I took the hard right, hoping to minimize the damage as I just cleared the back of the next car and skidded across the gravel of the driveway. My bike was down and dragging me with it.

I was sliding towards a construction median – too fast. The recoil from the bike would be enough to break half the bones in my body.

I had a split second to recognize that if I survived this, I would be the luckiest son of a bitch this side of the Atlantic…

And then the bike struck concrete and shattered, and the truth of what really happened became lost to the memories of Afghanistan.

Emma

I walked through the familiar white halls of the hospital, the sterile smell of plastic and hospital detergent rising up to my nose. Each breath felt a little more stringent than the next.

What was I going to find? All the possibilities passed through my mind one more time. I imagined him in a full body cast, on life support. In the morgue.

But that wasn’t what happened.

I remembered Layla’s words. “Aidan is in the hospital. Bike crash. He’s okay. Broken bones, but nothing that won’t heal.” My head knew that. My imagination was promising horror.

It was like being on a roller coaster, every thought either dropping me low off a cliff or pulling me right back up. From fear to hope to despair to determination to utter terror.

I didn’t even know if he wanted me there, but I wasn’t going to stay away.  Not over this. I needed to know he was okay. I needed to see it with my own eyes. And I wanted to tell him I was sorry. I had been angry, and he had been cruel, but I had acted like an ass, too.

I remembered the peace that had come from talking things out with my mother. I needed to try to do that with Aidan, too.

I struggled not to hope for more.

“Emma, come here.”

It was the first thing he said to me as I walked in the room. He wasn’t shy or quiet, and he didn’t look broken. There was a sling wound around his chest and shoulders.

There was a cast on his arm, and he was bruised up, but he was awake and he looked me right in the eye when he spoke to me.

I moved closer to him, taking his outstretched hand gingerly. Collarbone breaks were nasty because so many muscles were connected across the shoulders and clavicle. The break was new. I didn’t want to hurt him.

Squeezing my hand looked like it hurt him a bit, but he didn’t let go. He just looked up at me, peering into my soul and waiting.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’ll live. The prosthetic got crushed though.” He shook his head. “I was an idiot. I should’ve anticipated –” He stopped short and looked at me. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” I pulled a chair closer and sat down, running my thumb over the back of that gorgeous hand. He had done so much with those hands – for other people, for me,
to
me…

“I was trying to clear my head. I wanted to come see you without… you know, being pissed.” Aidan cleared his throat and then pulled me closer. “Did you mean what you said?”

“What?”

“When you called me. Did you mean it?”

“Yeah.” My breath was heavy.

“I want to tell you...”

“What?”

His sentences were confusing me.

“I want you to know what happened, Emma. Why I have one leg.”

I nodded, leaning back in the chair and watching as he looked down at the covers.

“We were on a recovery mission. A truck had broken down and we’d had to leave it behind. So we went out to fix it. It was fucking hot out there, you know?” Aidan asked.

I nodded.

“I was pissed as hell because I was assigned to it last minute, and I hated scrambling to get my shit. Easy to miss stuff when you’re in a rush, you know? You can’t just go back inside and grab it either. You don’t have it, you ain’t getting it. So I was pissed and trying not to be an asshole.

“We got out there and started working. It was next to a couple of other abandoned cars, and we checked them, we did. But I was distracted. That’s all it took. Just that once…

“I should’ve seen the car bomb. It was my fucking fault. It blew. We dove for cover, but they were waiting to pick us off. The bastards who had set the bomb… If our backup hadn’t come, I’d’ve died, too. I wished I’d died, too.”

I didn’t say anything. I’d never heard him say so much at once, and I had a feeling it hadn’t all poured free yet.

Sure enough, he went on after a minute or two.

“It was my fault they died. Everyone acts like I’m a hero or some shit. I’m no fucking hero. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. They said that I shielded Renshaw with my body - that that’s how I lost my leg. I remember the screaming and the fear and the pain. I remember burning… But I don’t remember trying to save that man...”

“What happened to him?” I asked quietly after a moment.

The way he looked at me told me the answer. I squeezed his good hand, running my thumb over the hard angles and broad knuckles.

He was a good man, even if he forgot that sometimes. I knew what it was to be hard on myself, but the weight he was choosing to carry?

“They called me a hero,” he muttered again, bitterness staining his voice. “I’m no fucking hero… All those men died because I wasn’t watching the way I should’ve been. People here might shrug it off, but other servicemen know… I know…

“I was pissed off and I didn’t do my job. I failed. And people died for it.”

I turned that over in my head for a few minutes. “You weren’t the only one looking for them, were you?” I finally asked.

“No -”

“Then stop beating yourself up over it.” I was serious, anger coming out in my tone. How dare he blame himself for this. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t put the bomb there. And for all that training and all that discipline, he was human. Five minutes of being angry had costs lives. It was horrible and sick, but he wasn’t the one who put that bomb there. And he’d followed through, even in shock, trying to protect his brothers in arms.

“Life is too short for that shit. You can’t say who should have died. No one can. That was a warzone. That’s what happens in
war
. People die. People kill each other. People make mistakes and the costs are too high. … You didn’t cause their deaths. You did your best. And something went wrong…”

I could see him fighting it. He’d been carrying that guilt too long to let it go that quickly. But I could also see the tension in his jaw easing. He heard me. He was thinking about it.

A year ago, when he’d just gotten home, I doubted any words would have gotten through to him. But he’d adjusted. He’d had time to recover. And he had made a life for himself.

And so when I laid out the facts, they made a little more sense.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” He pulled me on him, only wincing once. “Thank you, Emma.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I – I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He squirmed – he actually
squirmed
– in the bed. Maybe that was why he got all riled up and stodgy again. “Do not leave me again. The last time was the last time.”

I nodded. I could handle that.

“No more ultimatums,” I said.

“Fine.”

“I mean it.”

“I heard you.”

I leaned forward and laid my cheek on that rippled stomach, looking up at him. “I won’t ever leave you again. I promise.” I wouldn’t either. I might try to beat him up if he tried to run me off again, but I wouldn’t leave him.

He was everything to me, my entire world. He was my friend, too. My lover. My heart.

Maybe it was the fact that my cheek was so close to his cock, but that fucker was stiffening behind my head.

A slow, wicked grin spread across my face, and I reached back to stroke, amazed as always by the sheer strength of it.

He tensed and tried to sit up – and he choked down a scream of pain. Collarbone breaks were nothing to sneer at.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

I was trying to become a physical therapist. Some part of my brain had known better than to try to get him riled up. But my hands… That body…

I hadn’t meant to hurt him, though.

I was amazed he hadn’t screamed.

“
Fuck
,” he cursed softly as I helped him settle back in. “That should not hurt that bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I wanna fuck you, too.”

I sputtered and smoothed his forehead, softly massaging away the tension.

“When you get the hell out of this hospital bed I am going to remind you just how much you missed me.”

When the doctor came in, he explained that it would probably take Aidan anywhere from two to four months to fully recover.

My jaw hit the floor. Two months without us…
What?

I couldn’t imagine it, but I knew one thing for sure. We were going to be at it like rabbits when they finally took that brace off.

And judging by the look on his face, Aidan and I were going to be getting very creative a hell of a lot sooner than that.

Emma

We sat around a table at the clubhouse bar, Aidan completely healed, his body good as new. I’d tested the whole package out a lot since he had returned, and I could smile knowing that he was a very, very imaginative man when it came to getting what we both wanted.

“You sure you are good to ride?” Rage asked. 

“Yeah. I’ll be fine”

I could have attested to that, but they really didn’t need me to. We’d been a little quieter since the last raid, but everyone knew anyway.

Rage went on. “Got word about the motherfucker that fucked us over a while back.”

“Bones?”

“Yeah… Bones. Strike came through on his promise. Shit is going to get serious, and I need my Sergeant-at-Arms to be fucking ready to go. Got me?”

“I’m fine. The new leg is working out. Plus, I got my girl.” He smiled at me, and pulled me into his side. I was almost in his lap, my hand bracing against his thigh to stay upright.

“Having fun?” I murmured in his ear. I already knew the answer but any excuse to make him shiver like that would do.

Layla chided her husband. “Let him ride, Cullen. If we treated you like this after you got stabbed, you’d’ve had everyone’s head.”

She threw a pile of bills down onto the table. “Need your signature on a bunch of club expenses.”

Something about the first bill caught his eye. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Doctor’s bills. You need to sign and pay.”

“OBGYN? Ultrasound?”

She blushed.

Thrash grinned, tilting his glass at Rage. “Hey, man. Sign that check now. It’ll get a hell of a lot harder after that kid pops out.”

Rage’s jaw hung open. “B-baby?” He stood and picked her up, a huge grin spreading across his face. He twirled her around and muttered,  “Oh shit.” He put her down and looked at her. “Are you sure?”

She smiled, utterly content. “There’s a tiny heartbeat pounding inside of me.”

“Congratulations,” I said to her, and she beamed.

“Thanks. We weren’t expecting it, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”

A new life. It was incredible.

I kissed Aidan, genuinely happy for Layla.

This was our new life. I wouldn’t leave again. Not for anything.