Dark Destiny (Dark Brothers Book #4)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Ok, so, there’s two people that really made this book possible for me. So for them, I am completley grateful because if they didn’t keep kicking my ass, I wouldn’t have done it.

The first, is Melissa Stewart-Allum. This girl ripped the book apart and quite literally helped me put it back together again. She read, she busted my balls, she cheered when I needed cheering and she came down hard on me when I needed it. Without her, I would have never completed this. She helped me with the storyline, the characters, she even told me of her cold and flu drug dreams. She knows she’s my number one, now and always.

The second, is Lola Stark. That girl sat on Voxer, chatting to me day in, day out. She gave me ideas, she helped me form plots but most of all, she gave me something else to think about. When a book consumes you, sometimes it’s hard to step away. When I had break downs, she would pull me together with her Voxer talk (Dirty tramp) and she would bring me right back up again. That girl is freakin’ amazing and without her, I wouldn’t be sane.

Books in this series

Dark Poison (Book One) – Previously titled Dark Passion.

Dark Desire (Book Two)

Dark Endings (Book Three)

Dark Destiny (Book Four)

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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR! PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU READ JAGGER & WILLOW’S FINAL JOURNEY.

Hello my beloved fans,

As you know, I fully intended to finish Jagger and Willow’s story with Dark Endings, but you, my little petals, decided you just weren’t finished with them. So, after much pleading, I decided to continue it with one more book. You all wanted to know what happened when they arrived back from the island, and how they coped with it. So that’s what I’m giving you. I’m giving you the raw reality. I’m giving you the truth, but don’t fret, my sweets, Jagger and Willow will get their happiness.

Writing this book was tricky for me, I left it in Dark Endings with a Happily Ever After and I was quite ok with that, but when I had to think of how they survived after the island, it got me thinking about my own situation. So, that’s what I decided to do. Write what I know. Anyone who has had some sort of traumatic experience in their life, knows full well that it’s not so easy to recover from and the way we react to it, isn’t always text book.

In this book, I pull out all the raw, gritty emotions that were left behind. Because let’s face it, there’s always emotion and struggle after an experience like Jagger’s. What I have done with this book, may seem unrealistic to some, perhaps those who haven’t experienced it, but let me tell you, it’s so very real. I know this, because I actually experienced the same emotional turmoil in my life a few years ago. I never would have believed it possible to turn ones feelings off like a switch, but that’s exactly what happens, it’s exactly what happened to me.

I honestly believed I didn’t love my family, my friends, my kids, my husband. I truly believed that I had no emotions left. I couldn’t feel, no matter how hard I tried. It was one of the most emotionally challenging moments of my life. My husband suffered. My kids suffered. My family suffered. Jagger’s
situation, is very real to me, and is very real to a lot of people. How they deal with it, is also very real. I recall nearly losing my life one afternoon, and that’s how I snapped out of it. I was in the hospital, being told to say goodbye to my family, and I realized just what I had done. I nearly lost my life, but I nearly lost them in the process. I broke down. When faced with life and death, I realized just how deep I had sunk myself.

And just like that, I changed my life and everything got better. Yes, better. I cried, I struggled, I dealt with the fact that I very nearly died and I moved on. I remember saying to my mother, “I thought I didn’t love my own husband, I nearly lost him. How could I ever possibly believe I didn’t love him anymore?” but the reality was, I honestly believed that at the time. I was in too deep. When faced with losing him, like a switch flipped, I realized just how much I did love him. Since then, I have never looked back.

So, my darling readers, while unrealistic to some, there are some situations that no book, doctor or study can explain. Sometimes, it’s just a learning curve. Sometimes, it’s so completely off track that no one knows how to help.

That’s life.

And now, with Jagger, I will share some very intimate thoughts of my own, that I personally experienced during my own mental block down.

Go easy,

Jagger loves you all and heck, so do I!

Bec
xo

PROLOGUE

JAGGER

Darkness, you never truly understand the full meaning of it until it consumes you. It’s just a word, it’s just a place you hope you never have to go. Once it takes you, it’s not something you can be freed of easily. It takes your body, your mind, your soul, and puts it in a place no one can reach. It takes your happiness and crushes it into a thousand tiny pieces. It takes your reality, and throws it down a long, dark abyss. Feelings? They mean nothing to darkness. Love? That’s nonexistent. The only thing that exists in the world of darkness, is you and your thoughts. The thoughts that, in time, will completely consume you until you’re nothing but a shell.

That’s what I’m becoming.

A shell.

A nothing.

A man with no heart. A man with no soul. My actions are overshadowing my reality. Everything I thought I believed in, is now clouded. Everything I thought I loved, is now no more than a dull ache in the back of my heart. I feel nothing. I am numb. Completely enveloped by the darkness surrounding me and I can’t find a way out. I made a mistake coming back here. I made a mistake promising her a happy ending. I made a mistake promising my children that I could be good for them. Right now, happiness is no more important to me than death. There is no line anymore. Nothing separating my emotions. It’s all been blurred into one, dark emotion.

Emptiness.

That’s all I feel.

Emptiness.

WILLOW

Isn’t it amazing how easily things in life change? You go from having a wonderful situation, to having a bad one. Ok, I shouldn’t put it like that, because let’s face it; my life so far hasn’t exactly been wonderful. I thought though, that after everything that went down with Mick, it would finally pick up and things would get better. For a while it did. Jagger was happy, I was happy and everything was running smoothly. I gave birth to my second child, a beautiful girl we named Leila. She brought sunshine back into our darkness, and for six months, things were just that…sunshine.

Then the nightmares began. They started with a few twists and turns in the night. Jagger would wake up gasping, his chest glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. Then he started thrashing. He started calling out. He started punching. That’s when I had to start sleeping in another bed. That’s when things started to go wrong. He began to withdraw, his usually brave face was slipping into a place I was afraid I couldn’t pull him back from. I guess reality is funny like that; sometimes it just takes a while to sink in. Jagger killed his own father. Did we really believe there would be no mental anguish after that? Did we really think it would be all sunshine and roses?

No. Of course we didn’t. We just let ourselves believe that maybe we were dealing with it. We let ourselves believe that he wasn’t suffering. When all along, that’s exactly what he was doing. Suffering. Inside. Deep in the depths of his soul. He was breaking to pieces. His mind was taking over his heart; it was pushing the wall he built up, right back down again. I don’t know what to do to help him. Not when he’s pulling away from me. What can I do to make it better, when he won’t tell me what’s going on? How do you fix something, when you don’t know which part is broken? How do you help someone get better, when they won’t talk to you? How to you take care of your family, as well as fight demons?

You don’t.

And that’s the problem. 

CHAPTER 1

WILLOW

My daughters’ cries jerk me from my sleep. I groan and shift, rubbing my fingers over my eyes and allowing myself a moment to wake up. When I hear her cry again, I sigh and climb from the bed. The bed that I am alone in. The bed that I haven’t felt Jagger in for two months. The bed that hasn’t felt any love. I slip my slippers on and pull on a robe before walking down the hall to Leila’s room. I gently crack the door open and peer in. The faint light is shining down over her face, and I can see she’s sitting up, staring at me through the cracks in her crib. I can’t help but smile, how can I not? No matter what happens between Jagger and I, our kids always make us smile. Even he smiles around them.

“Hey, baby girl,” I coo. “What’s wrong?”
             

She cries a little louder, and I walk in, lifting her from the crib and wrapping my arms around her. She smells like baby wash, and a touch of Jagger. That smell has my heart clenching. I miss it. I miss everything about him. I miss his lips on mine. I miss his body against mine. I miss his arms around me. I swallow back the pathetic tears that sting my eyes. I can’t cry over something I can’t change. I just have to continue being there for him. It’s all I can do right now. Leila places a chubby hand on my cheek, and I can’t help but smile down at her. She’s gorgeous. Just like Cody. Dark hair like Jagger. Green eyes like me. I tangle a finger in one of her thick, dark ringlets and twirl.

“Can’t you sleep, honey?”

She coos at me. I kiss her cheeks, inhaling her scent.

“Mommy will get you a bottle, ok baby?”

I put her back in her crib and hand her a rattle. She shakes it around, looking up at me with that dazzling face. I give her one last smile, and then I turn and walk out of the room. I tread quietly down the hall; I don’t want to wake Jagger. He doesn’t sleep enough as it is. I get up on my tiptoes and the floorboards creak, as I try very desperately to stay quiet. Luckily for me I know my own house, because I can’t see a damned thing. When I slam into a hard, hot chest…I know I’ve woken him. Well, that, or Leila woke him. I don’t push him away. For a small moment, I just inhale him. I breathe him in, letting his scent fill my nose. His skin is warm from his slumber and it only makes me want him that much more.

I want so desperately to just tilt my head up and capture his lips with mine. To wrap my arms around him and press his body close, feeling every, hard inch of him. I can’t though. It’s not that he wouldn’t let me. I’m sure he would tolerate it, if I insisted, but I don’t want to insist. I want him to seek me out. I want him to want me. Everyone tells me it’s just a phase, that he won’t feel like this forever and I just have to give him space. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m giving him space. I won’t push, because I won’t risk losing him. If I lost Jagger, my world would fall to pieces. My kids world would fall to pieces. He’s everything to them, to us. We need him.