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.”

“Ky, I—”

Whipping around, Ky trapped me on either side with his huge arms, his wide body hovering above mine. “No, Li, you need to listen to me. You were dragged up in a life that did you nothing but wrong. Hell, not fuckin’ wrong. They abused you nonstop, raped you, made you fuckin’ think all the good you got inside or out was fuckin’ evil. It was those sick fucks thinking they were disciples of God that had to make you feel like shit to get their fuckin’ pedo rocks off! I ain’t got no faith. Don’t think I’ll ever reach the pearly fuckin’ gates, but I know if there is a God, nothing those freaks are doing is what he wants. He would fuckin’ love you for you, not your beauty, ‘cause, bitch, who wouldn’t?”

Ky stroked my hair and brushed a kiss on my injured cheek. “I’m gonna love you with all these scars, with this sexy-as-fuck short hair. However the fuck you look, wearing a damn Glad bag if you want. I’m in this with you ‘til the very end.”

Looping my arms around his neck, a surge of love… unconditional love swelled through me, and I said, “I cannot regret it.”

“Regret what?”

Studying his perfect face, I was overwhelmed with happiness. “I cannot regret what I did to myself. I feel I have been set free.”

Ky sighed as if from exhaustion and his forehead touched mine. I closed my eyes, cherishing this miracle. This miracle lying beside me.

“I cannot believe you love me… like this,” I hushed out. “You are my unattainable dream come true.”

Ky shifted to the side and, careful not to touch my injuries, pulled me over to him until I draped over his chest, his warm, protective arms wrapping around my back. I could hear him trying to speak, but he could not get the words out.

Closing my eyes, minutes passed, and I inhaled the comforting scent of Ky. Eventually, he pressed a kiss to my head and said, “I’m gonna make you feel beautiful, baby. And you’ll never be made to feel less than anyone else, ever again.”

A foreign wave of peace filled my soul as Ky lazily ran his fingers through my newly short hair.

“Is it like this with everyone?” I murmured, lost in the feel of his touch.

“Like what, baby?”

“This, how it is between me and you. How we feel for one another. Is this normal?”

Ky inhaled a sharp breath and his hand around my shoulder held me just that bit tighter. “Nah, baby,” he hushed out, adoration clear in his husky timbre. “It ain’t like this for everyone.”

Sighing in contentment, a realization hit me. “Then it was all worth it,” I admitted and really truly meant it.

“What was, Li? What was all worth it?”

“Everything…” I whispered, my pain-filled life flashing through my mind—the tortures, the loss, the segregation, the abuse… the rapes. I nuzzled into his torso and continued. “Every single second of my life… because it eventually led me to you. It led me to fall so deeply in love with you, Ky… the man who recaptured this bruised and battered heart.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ky

“Ky? Where are we going? The compound is back that way.”

It was exactly two weeks since Lilah had cut herself. Today, she was comin’ home. And thank fuck, ‘cause I couldn’t deal with one more night sleeping in that narrow-as-fuck bed.

My woman was doing better. Her cheek was healing. The scar was still red and fresh, but my woman was doing good. Real good. She was changed. The release of being beautiful, now being scarred, had somehow freed her, and I fucking adored the bitch as she was now.

Lilah stared at me all confused as I turned onto a back road that ran to the land Styx’s old man and my old man owned behind the compound. Her blue eyes narrowed, her fat lips pursed. Her pixie-cut blond hair—courtesy of Beauty—was as cute as hell, and I could never bring myself to tell her, but the cut made her even more beautiful than she was before.

“Going somewhere new, sweet cheeks,” I said. Lilah turned to look out the window. “Can’t be staying at the compound no more. Deserve to be somewhere else.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Lilah’s eyes locked onto me. I couldn’t help but grin, really wide. Two miles down the road, I turned the truck left and into a small clearing, which featured a newly refurbished log cabin in the middle.

Lilah gasped. When I pulled to a stop, she jumped straight out of the truck and ran to stand in front of the cabin. I got out and walked up behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and rested my chin on her head.

“It is like the ranch,” Lilah exclaimed, all impressed and shit.

“Used to be my old man’s. Styx had them done up earlier this year.”

“Them?” Lilah queried.

Freeing my hands from around her waist, I gripped Lilah’s hand and walked her round back. Pointing at a road up a hill, I said, “Styx and Mae will be living a few miles away up that hill.”