Stroking at his short beard, I asked, “Why… why are you still here? I do not understand why you are here, by my side.”
Ky’s face blanked and then all his muscles tightened, small lines crinkling around his eyes. “Where the fuck else would I be if not with my woman? My broken woman. You hacked yourself up in front of my club, baby, shot a brother while in some cult trance, and you had to come to the hospital. I was gonna be nowhere but right in this bed with you, making sure you were okay.”
“Your woman?” I asked in complete shock, and this time my heart thundered in… hope?
Could he…?
Could Ky…?
No… it was impossible!
“Lilah, baby, you gotta start making some sense, because I’m fuckin’ lost right now.” He leaned in close, his tongue licking along his perfect lips. “You’re my woman. You’ve been my fuckin’ everything since I first saw you. Do you not understand that by now?”
Tears blurred my vision and a disbelieving sob escaped my lips. Ky’s hands held the sides of my head and his face softened at my reaction. “I love you, Li. You’re mine. My woman. My property. My fuckin’ old lady… my fuckin’ forever.”
“But… but I am no longer perfect. I set you free from the devil within me. I cannot tempt you into false love again.”
Confusion clouded his features, then that confusion turned to frustrated anger. “That’s why you did all this shit? You thought I was under some fuckin’ spell? Do you think that little of yourself, Li? To fuckin’ hack yourself up?”
Lips trembling, I said, “It was not just because of you. All any man has ever wanted me for was my face… my body. I have been taken against my will since I was a child. Every touch that was ever laid upon me I was told was due to my evil and sinfully beautiful face. I was taken and touched because men could not resist. I was schooled and taken as a child by Brother Noah because it was how I would be saved.”
I could see rage boiling in Ky’s face, so taking a fortifying breath, I added, “But unlike those men, men that I could tune out, I loved you back. And because I love you so much, I want you to be happy. I could not keep you with me under false pretenses.”
Fighting back all fear, I said, “I could not take living like that for even one more day. All the pain the elders inflicted on me these past few days, the fire they trialed me with, the involuntary joining I was forced to endure with Brother Micah… I just wanted to be rid of the cause of it all. My beauty, my appeal to men has always been the cause of my pain and strife. Segregated because of my blond hair and blue eyes that the disciples could not seem to see past. Shunned from my family for tempting older men into salacious thoughts.” Tears dripped down my cheeks as I added, “I want to be unnoticed. I want not to exist in men’s eyes. I made sure that happened. I want to be nonexistent.”
Ky sat up on the bed, swung his legs off the side, and his head lobbed forward, turning his white shirt-covered back to me. I saw his muscles tensing and his shoulders shaking. Using what little strength I had, I pulled myself up to sitting position and placed my hand on his back.
Ky’s beautifully tortured face turned to mine, his profile regal and strong. “But that’s where you’re wrong, Li. ‘Cause scars or not, hacked-off hair or not, lash marks on your back, a fuckin’ cross burned onto your stomach or not, you are perfect to me. You will always exist to me. And anything you did to yourself to fuck that up didn’t work because you’ll always be the most beautiful bitch I’ve ever seen. You’ll always be the only bitch I’ll ever see, period.”