BLOOD LEGACIES
Chapter 472: My Heart Will Always Beat For You

Chapter 472: My Heart Will Always Beat For You

I stir awake but I am too wimpy to move because strong arms were wrapped around me in a tight hold like steel. My body feels warm too with no amount of cold like I felt earlier. And it all makes my recent breakdown all a dream, but the sore feeling at my side told me that it wasn’t. It was a vivid memory of what transpired when the panic got too much and I searched for comfort as I clawed at my own skin. I thought that was something I had overcome but it came back at such a cruel time. It only makes me feel more shitty about myself. I hated it when it got too far, too deep, and before I knew it I was marking my skin.

"I’m here," his voice said to my ear, soft and deep. But it sounds far away in my sense and I was too weak to register anything. I squeezed my eyes shut before forcing them open again, steam clouded around my vision, from the hot water we were both soaked in.

"Dace" I mumbled and my senses hastened and I was fully aware of everything. The last thing I remember was being against the floor unable to reach the water as the cold took over and it was like I was suddenly back in that ocean, it was a nightmare and I had never been so scared, it felt so real. So real... it felt like I drowned all over again, it was haunting.

I lost every touch of the real world as my imagination slowly killed me.

"I’m sorry... I wasn’t here" he said, his voice holding regret.

I forced my body to move so I faced him, I felt a sharp pain in my heart when I looked at him. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days, the bags under his eyes, his dark curly hair a mess falling and covering his forehead, wet and tangled. His lips dried and pale. I reach for his cheek and cup it, feeling the stubble beards under my skin. He looked to the side having no intention of leaning into my touch and it hurt me.

His eyes were a far distance and it seemed like we switched. His record of reality was far gone and whatever was playing in his head was pulling him further away from me. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t think my poor heart will be able to handle it again, this time it will make me go insane.

"It’s not fair," I whisper. "You can’t keep running away from me. We both know the only reason you came back is because you felt my pain"

He closed his eyes and sighed, shaky and uneven. "Why were you out in the rain?" He asked as he brought his hazels back to me and my lips parted when I saw them. This wasn’t some kind of fantasy, was it? Because right now I could see Dace, the Dace I have always known, both past and present like they have become one, his dark side and his warm side but at the edge of it there was a detachment.

In realization I grabbed his hand, the one he hurt and I observed it, there was no fresh wound which meant he hadn’t done it again, but I saw the straight scar, reaching up his elbow, I never realized how deep it was until now. He never healed it so it scarred, can’t it go away? Can’t it?

My lips quivered and I inhaled as I shifted my eyes to his chest, his tattoo had spread and covered his chest, the relic black inked flames, he was like a map of tattoos now. I reached and traced my hand on every one of them, feeling the rough texture of his skin and the inks. I have a guess this tattoo wasn’t done in a tattoo shop, I think it has to do with his supernatural being.

"What is it?" I asked. I darted my eyes to him but he remained silent. "Dace" he slowly brought his eyes to me but they looked somewhere other than my eyes as if he was afraid to meet them.

"It’s the Alpha’s mark, the same as my Father but different"

I nodded in understanding, it explains how usual it is, especially his.

"Why didn’t you heal?" I asked once again, breaking the question that ate me up inside. I brought my gaze back to his left wrist, my fingers traced the thick scar, a tear sliding down my cheeks softly. I sobbed as I moved his hand to my stomach and he froze, his corded arms tensing, I placed his hand on my scar, spreading from my side to the center.

"To be honest... it was just a bite mark at the side, barely visible" I began and he gulped hard at my words. "But after numerous nightmares and panic attacks, I kept clawing it open until I made it as gruesome as this"

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No... It shows it’s not just your fault"

He shook his head as he looked to the side and not me, his fist clenching so hard and I knew he would hurt himself again. So I took his knuckles and forced them open. Rubbing my hand on his to soothe him, to somehow get him out of his thoughts and the constant horror he feels, the guilt, shame, and anger he felt like was a bombshell to his heart, imploding with every beat.

"I wanted your hate... I needed it" he began. "It was pleasurable to see the anger blazing in your eyes" he tapped his skull. "That was what the dark side wanted when I kidnapped you that night. I wanted nothing more than to destroy something so delicate and breakable, your emotions were like a meal I feast"

"And what about the warm side?" I asked completely ignoring what he said for they don’t affect me like he did. I knew just how he was with me months ago and I have made peace with them. What I need right now is the man in front of me and I hope I don’t lose him to madness. The storm in his orbs was frantic and his pupils dilated. He was constantly flipping on and off like a time bomb.

He chuckled but it was humorless, dry, and cold. "Warm side? You mean who I was before I became the dark alpha" his fingers tapped on the bathtub rim as he followed that rhythm as if he was trying to get himself rooted to this moment, instead of the horrors in his head.

"Dace"

"It’s contradicting Emma, my body houses two personalities now but it still doesn’t change who or what I am" he leveled his eyes at my scar, his gaze shocking and his face got paler. "Or what I did... I took a pure beautiful soul and ruined it. Like you said I ruined you for everyone else. It feels breathtaking no one will dare to take you away. But it crushes my soul that I am your living nightmare. You’re scared of me"

"No no... I am not scared of you Dace. I am not!"

He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. I placed my hand beneath his jaw so that I would get him to look at me but he didn’t.

"Look at me... Please. Why won’t you meet my eyes?"

I got nothing in reply so I moved until I sat on him, my bare pussy rubbing against his cock, hard like steel but he was too lost to care. He didn’t flinch, only stare in a distance but I was determined to make him focus on me.

I cupped his cheeks and I leaned in and kissed him feverishly, my lips roaming around his hungrily. But he didn’t kiss me back, but I kept my lips sealed on his, hoping to pour my feelings through them and keep him grounded to me.

I leaned away, stroking his cheeks gently. "My heart will always beat for you, Dace Devereaux. You have no idea. I don’t care if you go mad, I don’t care if you ruined me and I don’t care if you feel shame and guilt. Your feelings are mine as much as mine is to you. I love you" I kissed him again and his lips parted giving more invitation but I pulled away again.

"You didn’t break a pure beautiful soul, you broke me out of my shell, that day we met wasn’t cursed, it was one of my happiest, I met a mystery and one I was determined to solve and you stole my heart, you will always steal my heart and I will gladly let you take it. This shouldn’t ruin us, it shouldn’t because we have been through enough pain... So please... please"

A faint smile found his lips and it felt like my heart would burst from the feathering emotions.

"You don’t hate me?"

I shook my head. "Never"

He took my cheeks and looked directly into my eyes like he was trying to search for something beneath my gaze and it seemed like he found it.

"I love you. You’re my sanity Emma Adams... if I lose you I will drown. I need you I fucking need you"

"And you have all of me"