She closes her eyes as if those words are worth more than anything she’s ever been given. “He was your uncle,” she says. “Your family.”
“I know what he was,” I reply. “Blood doesn’t erase cruelty.”
Her lips tremble. Her breath catches. Her voice is barely a thread when she finally speaks again. “I didn’t kill him to protect me. I killed him because he killed my mom.”
Every muscle in my body goes still. There’s a version of me, the version born from duty and obedience, that would demand proof, would interrogate every detail. But that version has been dying since the moment she looked at me like she wasn’t afraid to die herself.
“I know,” I say. And I do. Absolutely.
She opens her eyes, searching mine for doubt. Finding none. “How? I’ve never told anyone.”
“I always suspected he was behind what happened to your mother, I just couldn’t prove it.” I say, lifting her hand to my lips and kissing her knuckles. “I was young at the time, twenty-two. I was made but nowhere near the inner workings of the family. I couldn’t get close enough to get to the truth.”
“My father didn’t believe me,” she says, her voice turning strangled. “But you do.”
She melts a little more into me, her legs tangling with mine like her body knows something her mind hasn’t caught up with yet.
“Why does that make me feel safer?” she asks, voice breaking around the edges.
“Because you’re mine,” I tell her, letting the truth sit heavy in the space between us. “And I protect what’s mine, forever.”
Her breathing stumbles. Her fingers curl into my side as if the world might tilt without me anchoring her. “Even from your own family?” she whispers.
“Especially from them,” I answer, my thumb brushing along her jaw.
The moonlight shifts across her skin and I swear I can see her heart cracking open, inch by inch. She’s not ready to name it. But the fear in her eyes isn’t fear of me, it’s fear of wanting someone enough that losing them might hurt.
“What happens now?” she asks after a long moment, the uncertainty in her voice making me want to burn down every threat in her life.
Now? Now the path is already carved beneath our feet.
“Now,” I say, tightening my hold around her, “We need to get married.”
“What?” she asks, pulling away from me to check whether I’m being serious.
“That way I can keep you safe,” I promise. “I see you, Elizabeth, and I don’t just like what I see. I worship it.”
Her pulse spikes under my palm. Her eyes shine. And instead of running from that vow, she leans into it.
She rests her head back against my chest, her breath syncing with mine like her body has found a rhythm it doesn’t want to lose.
“I don’t know if I can love someone,” she murmurs into my skin. “I don’t know if I lost the ability when he killed mom.”
I tilt her chin again, guiding her gaze back to mine.
“You already do,” I say. “Because after everything, this is the only time you’ve been scared.”
She doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t speak. She just stays there in my arms, choosing me in the silence.
Elizabeth
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I wake up with his mouth sucking my nipple and the moonlight filtering through the gap in the curtains.
A long, low moan pulls from my throat when his fingers press between my folds, stroking me until I’m fully alert and wanting more.
He releases my nipple and looks up at me, his face in lines of shadow.
“Are you sore?” he asks.
