Reborn Heart of Steel

The ringleader opened her mouth, no doubt to unleash another litany of fragrant protests and indignant deflections.

But one withering glare from Mrs. Wilson’s smoldering eyes seemed to rob Brittany of her bravado.

“I want you reprobates out of this classroom and in the principal’s office within the next sixty seconds,” the older woman intoned, her voice low and dangerous. “Otherwise I’ll be pursuing an extended suspension for the lot of you. Is that clear?”

You could have heard a pin drop in the ensuing silence.

Even Brittany wasn’t dumb enough to openly defy direct administrative action at this juncture.

With one last hate-filled glower in my direction, she jerked her head towards the door in a silent command.

Her minions hastily followed, scurrying after their disgraced ringleader like a pack of scalded rats.

The tension in the room didn’t dissipate until the last echoing footfalls retreated down the hallway.

I slowly unfurled from my hunched protective posture, taking stock of the fresh welts blooming across my exposed skin.

“Miss Abrams, kindly come with me.” Mrs. Wilson’s no-nonsense bark shattered the terse quiet.

I wordlessly obeyed, wincing as I rose stiffly from my chair and joined the dour-faced instructor by the door.

She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, resolutely refusing to meet my gaze as we marched in terse silence towards the nurse’s office.

The walk seemed to stretch into a small eternity, the muffled sounds of classroom activity buzzing in the periphery.

I kept my eyes trained on the scuffed linoleum beneath our feet, concentrating on shoving down the panic and humiliation churning in my gut.

I knew the drill all too well a brief respite to lick my wounds until the next inevitable storm of derision and degradation crashed over me once more.

An inescapable riptide that threatened to pull me under for good if I didn’t steel myself against its relentless pull.

The click of the nurse’s office door swinging open jarred me back to reality.

Mrs. Wilson ushered me inside with a gentle but firm hand between my shoulder blades.

Nurse Bailey glanced up from her paperwork, her grandmotherly features pinching into a frown as she took in my disheveled appearance.

“Another incident with those awful Holbrook girls, I presume?” she tutted, already rising to gather supplies from the cabinet.

Mrs. Wilson simply nodded, steering me over to the cot with a guiding hand.

I sat stiffly upright on the firm mattress, my shoulders slumped and eyes downcast as the veteran nurse got to work, gently dabbing at the stinging abrasions dotting my skin.

“You poor dear,” Nurse Bailey murmured, her voice a throaty coo of sympathy as her aged hands moved with deft surety. “I swear, if I were forty years younger, I’d march right down to that principal’s office and give Brittany Holbrook a piece of my mind myself. Rotten behavior like that should never be tolerated in a place of learning.”

I offered a noncommittal shrug, too exhausted and emotionally wrung out to formulate a proper response.

The events of the day Chase’s emboldened display in the courtyard, followed by Brittany’s vitriolic retaliation had sapped me down to the dregs.

“Now you just hold still while I get this fixed up proper,” Nurse Bailey soothed, swapping out ointments as she moved on to a lurid welt on my cheek. “I won’t have that nasty little brat’s venom leaving any permanent marks on that pretty face.”

Her kindly words washed over me, providing a brief salve against the hateful onslaught still reverberating through my psyche.

However fleeting, it felt like a tiny tether to my battered humanity in that moment.

“There now,” she breathed at length, stepping back to inspect her handiwork with an appraising nod. “All patched up and good as new. Though I’d give that one a little time before singing again, hmm?”

The last part was uttered with a conspiratorial wink and tender pat on my shoulder.

A lump swelled in my throat, and I averted my gaze before the tears burning in my eyes could betray me completely.

“Mind if I have a word?”

The familiar, softly resonant timbre caused my heart to stutter.

I snapped my head up to see Chase standing in the open doorway, concern etched into his striking features as his gaze roamed over the mottled bruises and scrapes dotting my skin.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“Of course, dear,” Nurse Bailey replied, bobbing her head. “I’ll just leave you two alone for some privacy.”

She gave my arm one last supportive squeeze before tottering out, pulling the door closed behind her with a soft click.

For several endless heartbeats, silence stretched between Chase and I like a taut bowstring as our eyes met and held across the small exam room.

When he finally spoke, his deep voice was soft and laced with simmering intensity.

“Brittany’s pathetic intimidation tactics against you will not be tolerated any longer,” he murmured in that same hushed fervor that made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickle. “Of this, I can assure you.”

“It’s fine,” I heard the hoarse whisper leave my lips before I could think better of it. “Just another day in the life, you know? I’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with her bullshit by now.”

The corners of Chase’s lips twitched at that, like my toss-away gallows humor had inadvertently amused him.

But his stare remained as intense and unwavering as ever.

“Nevertheless,” he intoned quietly, “no light as brilliant as yours should be subjected to such wanton cruelty. You are too exquisite, too transcendent to wallow perpetually beneath the bitter jealousies of stunted, mundane souls.”

My breath hitched in my throat at the unbridled reverence, the naked sincerity ringing in his tone.

Chase took a purposeful step closer, then another, until his powerful frame seemed to loom over me where I sat frozen on the cot.

“Lucy Abrams…” He reached out, cupping his palm along the undamaged side of my jaw with exquisite tenderness. “Promise me you won’t surrender your radiant spirit to this rancid darkness, no matter how viciously it claws. The world would be poorer for the loss of your luminescence.”

Every fiber of my being thrummed and resonated in harmony with the profound truth imbued in his murmured plea.

My heart, my very soul recognized the unbearable accuracy of his impassioned words at a primal, cellular level.

Before I could even begin formulating a coherent response, Chase leaned down and captured my lips in another scorching, soulful kiss.

This time there was no hesitation, no split-second paralysis as I instinctively surrendered myself over to the profound intimacy of that connection.

Our mouths moved in sensuous tandem, stoking the simmering heat between us into a smoldering conflagration that threatened to consume me whole.

I drank deep the ambrosia of his taste, his scent, losing all semblance of reality beyond the blazing ecstasy of this forbidden communion.

All too soon, he tore himself away with a ragged exhalation, straightening to his full, towering height once more.

His eyes those depthless emerald pools glittered with naked reverence and yearning.

“Soon, my radiant muse,” he rasped, flashing the barest glimpse of a wolfish grin before turning on his heel. “The time of your deliverance is nigh.”

With that enigmatic promise lingering in his wake, Chase swept from the small exam room, leaving me swaying dazedly in the ringing silence.

The lingering fire from our kiss still smoldered in the hollow of my breast, a seed of rapturous yearning threatening to blossom into an all-consuming devotion.

Outside the office windows, thunder cracked ominously across the roiling gunmetal sky, as if in portentous prelude of the storm to come.