Clipping Thorns (Withered Rose Book 2), page 22
I turn to the Priest and nod my head. “I accept this position.”
Twenty-Five
I knew Amory would change. No one would remain the same after what he’s been through. I’m not even sure I’m the same anymore. I can’t be if I want to carry out God’s will. I can’t be the same if I want to stand side by side with the most powerful man in New York City.
Uwe died two days ago.
I remember when Amory first came home with the ring on his finger. All he said was that he needed to make funeral arrangements. I’d asked if he was afraid of another attack, but he’d shaken his head.
“Uwe was a boss. There will be a ten-day grace period out of respect for his position.”
Since then, he’s been busy with the arrangements. We’ve barely had time to speak. So I wasn’t surprised by the cold look in his eyes when he entered our bedroom this morning. I wasn’t surprised by the distant sound in his deep voice as he told me he’d missed me. But I was surprised by how different he was in his passion.
I had expected Amory to change. In more ways than one. In his behavior, his attitude, his goals. But I hadn’t expected him to love me differently.
With a shiver, I realize how different he is as he lets out a long groan. His entire body tenses when he’s finished, and as he rolls off me, I notice the blank expression on his face. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t speak to me. Doesn’t even seem to realize I’m still lying there. He just gets up and walks to the bathroom.
As the door closes behind him, I feel tears prick the backs of my eyes, but I blink them away. I cannot cry. Not right now.
Kill the girl inside.
The words play on repeat in the back of my head. I have to grow up. I have to be stronger. If not for myself then for Amory. No one else can bring him back from the cliff he’s staring over right now. No one else can remind him of who he used to be, because they all love who he’s become.
When Amory opens the bathroom door, he takes one look at me and then sighs. “Get cleaned up.”
“That’s all you have to say?” I ask quietly, scooting to the edge of the bed. I let out a whimper as I move. There was no pleasure in our lovemaking. Only a dull ache as Amory took what I hadn’t offered. Claimed my body for his own.
I had let him. Had even welcomed him—because I thought it was what he needed. But as I gaze at the vacant look on my husband’s face, I realize I was wrong.
Amory glances down at me, his eyes lingering between my legs. “Sorry it was rough.”
Something crackles through my chest. Not anger, just red-hot emotion. “You can’t do this, Amy. You can’t treat me like I’m here for you to use.”
He folds his arms over his scarred chest. There are more of them than before. “Things are different now, Rosa.”
“But you don’t have to be different.”
“Yes, I do.” He glances away, and I think I see a flicker of remorse pass over his features before he blinks it away and meets my stare again. His eyes are cold. Like that moment of warmth never happened. “I’m the Jägermeister. And you’re my wife. Things are different.”
I start shaking my head. “It’s the day of your father’s funeral, and this is how you start it.”
“You need to learn your place. As a mafia wife.”
“Was that your way of teaching me?” I snap. “Bend me over to remind me that I belong to you.”
He steps forward, making me shrink into the blankets.
“First of all, I didn’t bend you over. But I can certainly do that if you keep dropping hints.”
I swallow thickly.
“Second of all, this isn’t just for me. You aren’t the wife of an underboss anymore. The German mafia has a standard to uphold. You are part of that standard now. You’ve got to change.”
“You mean I’ve got to start doing whatever you say.” I wrinkle my nose.
“Wives, submit to your husbands.” He laughs. “Isn’t that what your Bible says?”
Your Bible. Amory says that like he doesn’t believe. Like he has no connection to Christianity, even though he’s read God’s Word, even though we’ve prayed together, even though he’s confessed to believing in God.
He’s changed.
“Do not try to weaponize the Word of God against me,” I say hotly. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He narrows his eyes.
“But since you want to quote scriptures at me, here’s one you ought to remember.” I stand up and walk right over to him, unashamed of my nudity and too angry to care about the lecherous look on his face. “Husbands, treat your wives with respect so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”
Amory looks at me dumbly.
“That’s First Peter chapter three, verse seven.” I lift my chin. “Remember it.”
I can tell from the look in his eye that he’s never heard that scripture before. I’m not surprised. Many men haven’t. But it’s there and the meaning is clear. Respect your wife, or your prayers—the very line of communication between you and God—could be crippled.
Amory doesn’t understand this. He wasn’t raised Christian, so he has no idea what it even means to be a Christian husband. But if he thinks he can spout misinterpreted scriptures to me, and use them to control me, then he’s got another thing coming.
I watched my mother get beaten by my father. I watched her sob in the pews of a church. And I watched as a Priest patted her on the shoulder and told her to go back home to the man who’d beaten her and be a good, submissive wife. I watched Christina get dragged away by Hans as her husband laughed. I watched Conrad raise his hand to Gisela—and the only person in the room who seemed disturbed by it was me.
I will not allow Amory to treat me the same way.
He doesn’t speak for a long moment, just stands there studying my face and my body. The lust in his eyes is still there, as if he hadn’t had enough the first time around. But he doesn’t make any moves toward me. I’m glad. Because I don’t know if I have the strength to push him away. If Amory really wanted to, he could overpower me. Though I don’t believe he’s sank to that level just yet.
Still. This is not the man I first made love to. This is not the man who carried me to the shower and got down on his knees to wash my feet—to clean up what he described as ‘his mess.’ He is a mess now. And I don’t know how to clean him up.
“This isn’t you,” I whisper, hugging myself.
He seems to soften, sucking in a little gasp and leaning back against the bathroom door. “This is who I need to be.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It won’t be this way forever.”
“It shouldn’t be this way right now.”
“I can’t…” his voice trails off. He’s staring at the floor now, like he can’t meet my gaze. I step closer and take his hand, but he still doesn’t look at me. I lean in and kiss his chest, the center of the bullseye where his heart is at.
“Don’t…” he says quietly.
I stare up at him and he slowly wraps his strong arms around me. “I need you to love me for who I am right now. Not for the man I used to be. Or the man I can become. This is how it is.”
Be the wife he needs you to be…
I remember Christina’s advice—and I also remember the fact that she’s never been wrong. But I don’t know if she’s right about this.
Amory wants me to love him for who he is right now. The Jägermeister. The cold man who took me roughly, like a stranger. Like a hired woman from The Club.
I step back from his embrace. “I can only love you like this if you answer my question.”
He nods, grey eyes sharpened on me.
“Do you love yourself?”
Amory doesn’t speak.
Is this what it means to tend Your lamb? I pray inside, staring at my husband like I barely know him. I’m truly not sure I know him anymore. But I can get to know him again, as this strange creature who seemingly stole into my home overnight.
Love him unconditionally. Forgive him endlessly. Welcome him gracefully. Is that what it means to tend Your lamb, God? To show Amory that I won’t give up. That I will wrestle him down with love, until it overwhelms him. Just as You do for us.
I touch his hand. “You know God loves you…”
He flinches away. “Not now, Rosa.”
“Amy—”
“My father and uncle are dead!” He’s yelling now, hands balled into fists.
I should drop the issue, but I can’t. I won’t let this go—not when the battle is over his eternal soul.
“Death happens in war,” I say shakily. “Even to the best of us.”
“What’s the point in serving your God if we’re still going to lose the people we love?”
“Because God will be there to comfort us in our pain. But the only comfort you have is in a bottle.” I force myself to look him in the eye. “Or in my body.”
“What’s wrong with a husband taking comfort in his wife?” He steps closer to me, and I fight the urge to shrink away. “That’s what you were made for.”
“That isn’t true, and you know it.”
He cups my chin. “True or not, you didn’t stop me.” He leans down to whisper against the shell of my ear. “Because you enjoyed every second of it.”
My breath hitches and I remind myself to breathe, but it’s too late. Amory knows he’s won this argument. He knows he’s thrown me off, with just that little gesture.
More importantly … he knows he’s right.
Embarrassment works its way through my body and into my heart, it squeezes away whatever dignity I had left and leaves me squirming in shame. Amory knows me just as well as I know him. And that haunts me.
I try my hardest to show him the man I know he can be. But he does the same thing to me. Peeling back the layers of my heart to reveal the woman I’ve always been.
The one whose heart begins to race at the sound of his stern voice. The woman who enjoys his overbearing dominance. The wife who finds freedom in submission.
Amory had taken me roughly. But I had not stopped him. I hadn’t uttered a word in protest. He had taken something I hadn’t offered—comfort that wasn’t his—but I had taken from him too. I had watched as the warmth drained from his eyes, had fed on it, consumed his chilled passion and used it to extinguish the burning lust I could not control.
We’re a demented pair. Like vampires who can only feed on each other.
A tear runs down my cheek as I realize just how right Amory is. I was made for him.
But he was made for me too.
He surprises me by leaning down and kissing my cheek. “It won’t be like this forever. I won’t be the Jägermeister forever.”
I look at him, daring him to make that a promise, but he doesn’t. He can’t.
“How long?” I ask—no—I demand. “How long will it be this way?”
Amory walks away, heading toward his wardrobe to get dressed. “As long as it needs to be.”
That isn’t good enough. But I suppose it’s better than it could be. I could have been saddled with Conrad—a man who isn’t afraid to raise his hand to his wife, not even in front of others. I could have been given to Wolfgang, a man who killed his own fiancé with his bare hands. But I married Amory. This is my cup, and it’s filled with so many things—anger, bitterness, vengeance, blood.
I plan to drink every drop.
Because if I don’t, Amory will. And he won’t survive that. The man I first married, the man who showed me what it means to be loved, will never return if he drinks from those bitter waters. It has to be me.
If there is one thing I was made for, it was to stand by Amory’s side. To never give up on praying for his salvation. That’s what it means to be a wife. That’s what it means to love.
“Go get cleaned up.” Amory’s voice drags me from my thoughts. “I don’t want to be late for the funeral.”
A dark part of me wants to laugh. We’re in the middle of a gruesome mafia war. My father-in-law is dead, as well as his brother. I should feel afraid that Amory is next. I should feel worried that no one is safe. But I only feel numb. I suppose that’s what happens when you kill the little girl inside, and finally grow up.
Amory is the Jägermeister now. I am the Mistress of the German mafia now. We learned how to be married. We learned how to love. But just when I’d begun to understand this chapter of our lives, just when I’d mastered the art of clipping thorns, we sprouted weeds. What now? I ask God in my heart. What on earth am I supposed to do now?
I feel His answer in my bones—in my marrow—as clear as the sound of Amory’s voice as he once again tells me to get ready for the funeral.
Now, you start over.
Finish the series…
Starting Over
(Fall 2022)
Keep scrolling to enjoy a free sample of Starting Over!
More books by Valicity Elaine & TRC Publishing!
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The End of the World series
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I AM MAN series
Christian Romance
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Too Young
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thought writing Withered Rose was a challenge, but I think Clipping Thorns proved to be its own achievement. I’m so happy you’ve stuck around this long! Just one more to go and the story is over…
I mentioned before that I am not a fan of romance. This project is my attempt to write something I’d like to read and see more of in the Christian romance market.
It’s been quite a journey, as much as I have enjoyed myself, I sincerely look forward to finishing this trilogy. Let’s end this strong in the final installment, Starting Over. In the meantime, feel free to busy yourself with some of my other books! Like I said, I don’t enjoy romance, so here are a few Christian fantasy adventures for you to enjoy.
Cross Academy
I AM MAN
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Original Author’s Notes
This book was originally published as an episodic story on Kindle Vella. Please enjoy the original author’s notes below.
Chapter One
One of my goals for this story is to toughen Rosa up lol I love her as she was in Book One, but I am tired of teary-eyed innocent ladies being tossed around by the wind. I want to take a stab at writing a strong female lead, I pray I get this right.
Chapter Two
Both of my sisters hate Eliana XD I wonder if you hate her too? See you in the next chapter.
Chapter Three
Even though Olivia doesn't love him, I was incredibly excited to write about her wedding with Marco. She is such a lovely bride and character. Hopefully, we'll see more of her in the future. Hopefully we'll see more of Aldo too XD
Chapter Four
So far ... I'm really liking this new 'tough' version of Rosa. She isn't hard as steel, but she is certainly stronger. A rose with thorns XD
Chapter Five
I am so excited to get into Amory and his discovery/exploration of the Faith. His salvation is two books in the making so far, but I wanted to take my time. I wanted to do this in a realistic manner. Prayerfully, it's turning out alright. Oh ... and I'm totally digging the steam between Amy and Rosa XOXO
Chapter Six
I don't really know what else to say except that I did a lot of praying before writing this scene and I believe what God gave me was enjoyable. My goal was to present love in its purest form, the way God intended it to be, between a husband and a wife. I hope you found this chapter entertaining and *tastefully* steamy, haha. See you in the next chapter. XOXO
Chapter Seven
Who else thought it was sweet that Amy suggested they pray together? XOXO
Chapter Eight
I'm honestly sad to see Amory end his alliance with the Morenos because of how much I enjoyed Emilio. One of the things I've always loved is culture. Exploring the different mafias can sometimes be dark but the language, physical descriptions, food, and even the decor of their homes stemmed from their cultural backgrounds and I loved portraying that. Now a part of that will be ending haha, maybe we'll see more of the Morenos and their Spanish culture later on? We shall see.
Chapter Nine
Obviously, these two have some changes to make and things to work out in their relationship. Marriage isn't always bright and beautiful, but with God in the midst, I know it can certainly become as such. Even though these characters are fictional, I find myself cheering for them as they learn through their mistakes and work through their issues.
Chapter Ten
I honestly have no idea how I would have handled this situation... I feel it is very easy to read this series and think of Rosa as a weak character, but I must admit, in many ways, Rosa is much stronger than I am.
Chapter Eleven
I've been waiting for the war to finally begin... Now that it's here, I'm kind of stunned. This story somehow turned into a bit of an action thriller XD I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Twelve
Oh boy... What are we going to do with these two? XOXO
Chapter Thirteen
For some reason, this chapter was quite sad to me. I feel like this was a conversation our couple needed to have, but there was never any intention for it to end in tears the way it did. Hmm... Sometimes the story gets ahead of me lol but God leads the way, so I guess this is how it needed to go! See you in the next chapter XOXO
