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“Come here.” He lingered by the hood and offered me his hand.
I took it, allowing him to walk me towards a peak. We stopped a few feet back from the ledge, him positioning himself behind me, both arms wrapping around my front.
A gentle breeze offset the heat.
“Look,” he urged unnecessarily.
I was looking the second I got out of the car. I could see for miles ahead of us. Sand strewn rock, pinkish, ribbon-like fissures. Pure white plains in the radiating sunlight. There were empty roads with trees and saplings lining the sides. Chunks of green and small ponds.
“This is the Badlands,” he mused. “One side of it, anyway.”
I countered, leaning back into his embrace. “It’s beautiful.”
“It can be. It can be vicious and cruel too, but it’s ours.”
“I like that.”
He slid a hand down to my hip, tracing the outline of where my tattoo had been placed. “You know what this means?”
“I do.”
“It’s not me collaring you. I don’t need a mark to tell me you’re mine.”
“I know that, and I know what it means. I’ve fully accepted my role, you know that.”
“I wasn’t going to give you any other choice.”
He wasn’t joking.
“This wasn’t my surprise, by the way.”
I looked back at him. “Then what is it?”
“I’ll show you later. I want to stay like this a little longer. This is as calm a place to tell you I love you as I’ll ever get.”
I slightly turned. “Did you just say you loved me?”
He smirked. “You were too much of a chicken-shit to say it if I didn’t say it first.”
“That’s—” I laughed. “That’s actually true. You didn’t have to bring me up here to tell me that.”
“I don’t do anything I don’t want to, and if you can’t say it back, I might have to toss your ass over the canyon.”
“But you already know I love you,” I sassed.
“Little smartass. I needed to hear it from your mouth.”
I settled back into his arms, happily taking in this view. There was a whole world I’d been cut off from, and he was right, this was only one side of it. As cruel and vicious as it was, the Badlands had an unmatched beauty.
I glanced down and smiled, watching him stroke my Savage insignia. He was right about this too.
This wasn’t a symbol of ownership. It was a permanent sign that I belonged somewhere.
He didn’t need to brand my body when he’d already made his mark on my soul.
I hadn’t run away looking for any kind of salvation, but I found it anyway. Who knew it would come in the form of a devil? That it could be anything like this? Salvation was immoral and hauntingly beautiful.
EPILOGUE
