Vengeful Soul by Emma Creed

I don’t know where we go from here. That has to be figured out, but none of it seems to matter as I hold on tight to Brax on the way back to the compound.

I’m lucky to be alive, and I try pushing to the back of my mind how unaffected I’d just been watching the man I can’t deny being in love with, slit through the throat of the man I’d planned on spending the rest of my life with.

When Brax pulls up in the yard outside the cabins, I expect us to have to explain the whole thing to the others, and as grateful as I am to everyone, especially Maddy, I don’t know if I can face it.

Brax surprises me when he takes my hand in his and leads me straight to his cabin. “Jess, tell Maddy that Gracie will come speak to her in the morning. And…” he pauses and turns to face a tired looking Jessie, “Tell her thanks for everything.”

“Gotcha,” Jessie winks, heading into his own cabin as Brax pulls me in through the door. The moment we’re inside, he’s on me, his lips and hands smothering me with desperation. My body is tired, my muscles ache and I’m in a lot of pain but I need this as much as he does, so I kiss him back just as hard.

“You should never have left me,” he tells me breathlessly, his lips still firmly attached to mine.

“You should never have taken me back,” I answer, lapping up the deep groan of frustration he makes into my mouth. We both look like something out of a teen slasher movie, my hair matted and clumped, blood splatters on my clothes from the massacre he made of the men who hurt me. And Brax, so much worse with blood crusted on his hands, the T-shirt beneath his cut stained and torn.

I don’t care though, not even when his dirty hands grip at my face and hold me tight against his mouth. I want Brax like this, raw, untamed, savage and brutal.

“You know I’d never let anything bad happen to you, Gracie.” He pushes my head back so I can see the sincerity of that statement. I nod against the force of his hold until he kisses me again.

“I better have the Doc come take a look at ya.” He suddenly pulls away from me.

“After,” I shake my head. Needing his skin on mine, I push his cut off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor, then I slide the hem of his shirt up over his body and he drags his lips away from mine so he can help me get it off his head.

With his lips back on mine, his hands tear open the front of my shirt, then his rough palms slide around my hips and into the arch of my back, pushing my body tighter on to his. “I’m still so fuckin’ mad, I don’t think I can be gentle with you,” he warns.

“It’s okay.” I nod back at him, right now I don’t think I’d want him any other way.

“I need to be inside you. It’s the only time I feel like I have any fucking control of what’s going on in my head,” he tells me, popping the button on the front of my jeans then pushing them off my hips and tugging me close again. The friction of his denim against my naked pussy drives me wild, and when he lifts me up onto him, I hook my legs around his waist.

Brax carries me forward, placing me on the kitchen surface while he rushes to loosen his belt and pull open his jeans. Then forcefully, he slides me onto his hard length. It’s a comfort I can’t begin to describe, but one I know he feels too. I hear it in his low groan, and feel it in the way his hands grip at my ass like he’s scared to let me go.

“Tell me you weren’t with him,” he says, as he grinds his hips into me, pulling me closer and closer to forgetting my name, let alone all that just happened.

“I couldn’t,” I admit, watching relief take all the harshness from his face.

“You belong to me, I should never have let you fucking go,” he confesses, and I nod my head back at him as I wrap my arms around his neck, trying not to flinch at the pain in my stomach in case it makes him stop. I let him fill me with that hot relief I’ve missed so much while we’ve been apart. His head dropping into my neck and kissing me over and over, as his arms wrap around the trunk of my body and brace me against his deep hard thrusts.

I grip at his hair while my body tremors with pleasure, all the blood rushing from my head as I spasm around his cock. Brax stills inside me, his breath’s coming out heavy and his grip on me crushing. It hurts like hell but as his cock pulses its release inside me all that seems to matter is that we’re together again. We pant together, our bodies sticky with sweat, blood and hell knows what else. I feel his mouth over my collar bone as he breathes into my skin and his rage penetrates through the heat of our skin. His heart pounding thunderously against my chest.

“It’s okay, Brax, you saved me. I’m safe now,” I assure him, hoping I can calm him.

“I want to kill them again all over, slower. I made it too quick for them,” he rasps, his forehead pressing into my shoulder.

“It's gonna be okay,” I promise, trying to sooth some of his frustration.

“How can it be? I can’t be okay, not while you’re out there.”

“You and the club will find the rest of the agency, and I’ll be safe again.”

“No,” his fist slams hard into the cupboard door behind me. “I don’t do this, Gracie. I don’t care about people, and I don’t know how to fucking handle it.” He sucks in a deep breath but it only seems to calm him slightly. “When they had you and I didn’t know where you were, I lost my fucking head. I was the weakest I’ve ever been.”

“Brax…” I’m so confused, and when he pulls out of me and takes a step away, leaving me on the kitchen counter, I see all the frustration in his face again.

“I had him, he was right there, just a few feet away from me and then when I got the call from Maddy to say you were in trouble, it was like he’d never even mattered.” Brax rubs his hand over his face, his eyes wide like he’s suddenly realized something he can’t handle. “I spent my whole life waiting for that moment, Gracie. I may never get an opportunity like that ever again and I bailed on it because you were more important.”

“Brax, what are you talking about?” It’s like he can’t hear me, and when he steps even further away and pulls out a chair, he slumps into it and lights up a cigarette from the table.

“Everyone I’ve ever met thinks I’m a monster,” he continues.

“I don’t think you’re a…”

“And what I still don’t understand, despite all I’ve done, and all the people I’ve hurt, is how he could have been so fucking merciless.”

“Brax, you're not making any sense.” I slip off the work surface and go to him, kneeling between his legs. If it looks like I’m praying for answers that’s exactly what I’m doing. I've wanted for so long to understand this man. This feels like it could be my chance.

“He killed her right in front of me, he knew she was all we had and he just ended her like she was nothing. Nothing to him, but everything to me.” Tears stream down his face and he swipes them away with the back of his hand, his nose taking a big sniff to try to make them stop.

“I ain’t a monster, I know how to fucking love, don’t matter how much I try to tell myself that I don’t. I’m scared of it because of how much it hurts. I've been protecting myself from it.” Seeing him so hurt breaks my heart and I want to make him better. “Love makes a man too vulnerable. Hate’s only ever been the option for me,” he tells me as if he’s ashamed of himself.

“No, that’s not—”

“I don’t do vulnerable, Gracie,” he interrupts, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “Not since that day he took her.” Shaking his head, he stands up, leaving me on my knees as he steps into the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” I ask him, when he comes out a few moments later in fresh clothes, his hands and face still covered in blood.

“I got to speak to Prez about what happened, put a plan in place to take down the others. I’ll have Doc sent up to take care of you.”

“Brax, can’t that wait? So much has happened today. I just want to…”

“Get checked over, and go to bed, Gracie, get some sleep. I’ll be back soon.” Picking up his cut from the floor, he pulls it on to his shoulders.

“But I need you now.” I rush at him and take hold of his leather lapels. “Don’t do this, don’t let me in and then shut me out again.”

“You don’t need me, and I sure as hell can’t be needing you. When is everyone around here gonna understand that I’m not like them? I ain’t Jessie or Nyx. I can’t have a weakness. I’m no good if I have something to lose.”

“So this is it, after everything that’s happened, after all you just told me? You don’t want me?” He turns on me like he’s possessed, taking both my shoulders in his hands and pushing me back into the beam in the middle of the room.

“Oh, I want ya, Gracie, but that don’t mean I can have you. And if you had any sense, when all this is over, you’ll get as far away from me as possible.” He shoves himself off me and moves toward the door, slamming it so hard after him that the beam I’m resting against shakes. I sink down to the floor and cradle my knees, and I cry my heart out because I see no way for us, not while Brax is the victim of his own hate.