Drake Sisters 07 - Hidden Currents

‘F’ word at the top of your lungs. I love you. I’m in your mind. You’d never hurt me, not for any reason. So get over your big bad mood.â€
    He glared at her again. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re not the most soothing woman in the world?â€
    â€œThe idea isn’t to be soothing,†El e said, “it’s to knock some sense into your incredibly thick skul .â€
    They stared at each other, Jackson breathing heavily. He shook his head, looking away first. “Damn you, El e. You don’t seem to have one ounce of self-preservation left in you. Do you think this won’t happen again? It happens on a regular basis. I’ve stabbed the mattress more than once. I don’t sleep for days on end. It isn’t going to stop.â€
    â€œNo, you’re right, it isn’t going to stop. You have scars on your body, Jackson, and the worst ones are where no one else can see them.
    They aren’t going to disappear. You said that to me, because you’ve lived it and you know. What happened is a part of you. Sometimes everything wil be fine, and other times it won’t.â€
    She threw his words back in his face. If they were good enough for him to tel her, then they were good enough for him to live by. “That’s just going to be a part of our lives. I can live with it. And you’l have to live with my scars, because believe me, Jackson, I have plenty of them. You told me what happened to me wouldn’t come between us. I’m not a coward, and I love you. I refuse to walk away and you’re damned wel not walking away from me.â€
    She stood up, stepped right up to him, refusing to be intimidated by him. “Not after you made me live. Not after your promises to me. You don’t have that option.†He stood there, looking back at her, his black eyes glittering with heat. He looked savage, mean even, but she didn’t blink, staring up at him defiantly, even accusingly.
    â€œDo you know what they made me into, El e? You think I was an animal crawling on that floor, blind and sick and broken. I was a monster learning hatred, finding ice in my veins, a place I can go where I feel nothing —nothing at al . A place I can go to kil . That’s what you’re living with.
    That’s who I am. That’s what Kate saw that night.â€
    She didn’t flinch or turn away as he expected—as she should have. Her eyes softened and he saw— love. “Kate saw what I see. A man who tries to save the world. A man who doesn’t run from a fight. One who stands and can always be counted on. When I was alone and terrified and half out of my mind with pain and revulsion and even shame, I knew absolutely without a shadow of a doubt that you would come for me. I knew you would never stop looking, no matter how many weeks, months, even years. I knew it in my head, in my heart and in my very soul. That’s the man you are.
    That’s the man I see standing in front of me. And if you don’t see him, get your ass in the bathroom and look in the mirror.â€
    Jackson felt a burning behind his eyes. His throat was raw. She was a stick of dynamite when she got going, she always had been. He loved her so much it terrified him. He’d never needed anyone. He’d never wanted anyone. El e was different. She’d taken hold of his heart and there was no getting it back. He was a danger to her, maybe to others, but she just stood there in front of him, smal and delicate and made of steel.
    He damn wel wasn’t going to let her see him cry. He turned on his heel and left the bedroom, striding down the hal in the dark, toward the one room in his home where he could lose himself. He didn’t bother with lights; whenever he was like this, restless and edgy and screaming with rage inside, he needed the darkness and shadows.
    Outside the windows the mist had enclosed the house like a blanket, cocooning them in a mystic embrace. The wind blew through the trees so that they swayed and danced outside and when he stood at the window, he could see vines growing up along the fence, thick and strong, entwined around everything, with heavy sprays of blossoms. Those flowers grew thick and strong al along the Drake home’s fences—and they bloomed through the winter season.
    He shook his head and turned away from the strange