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But I held on.
Kieran gripped my waist and rushed me backward until I was pressed against the wall. Despite how fast we’d moved, I landed against it softly—like Kieran was still fighting against the beast to try to keep me safe.
“Kieran, you can’t go. I can’t let you.”
But with each second that passed, more of Kieran disappeared until all that stood in front of me was Nightshade.
I’d never been more afraid or destroyed in my life.
“I hate what he did to you,” I whispered.
Keeping my grip on him, I slid my hands down his arms until they were gripping his hands. With one last look at those disturbing eyes, I slowly turned my body so my chest was pressed to the wall and my back was facing him, and I pulled him against me.
And I waited.
“Lily.” His arms curled around my torso, pulling me tighter into his familiar embrace. A shuddering breath tore through him as his head dropped onto mine. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know.”
“Look at me,” he begged, his voice rough.
A plea I’d waited for my entire life. A plea that was years too late.
When I glanced over my shoulder, he forced me to turn so we were face to face. His grip on me tightened and his jaw clenched, but he remained unwavering.
“I felt like I was buried alive the day they lowered those two caskets in the ground, and ever since I’ve been trying to dig myself out,” he confessed. “But no matter what I do I bury myself deeper instead. You think I don’t see that you’re drowning, Lily? My mistakes are why you are. I just didn’t know I was drowning you when I’ve been spending every day of the last four years trying to fix what I ruined.”
He’d said something similar the night he asked me to marry him, only now it finally made sense.
Kieran was destroying the world and man I hated so much. He was getting his revenge on Mickey for being the catalyst that ultimately led to Aric’s death.
So much made sense . . . now. If only he had told me long before tonight.
I stilled when I noticed my body was trembling, and I slowly let my gaze travel from his arms to his fast-moving chest to his tensed jaw.
When I met his eyes, I forced myself to hold his stare and placed my hands against his chest, putting the slightest pressure there.
He released me immediately, taking a few steps away as he shoved his hands into his hair, locking his fingers behind his head.
It was then I considered how Kieran always thought through every move, and that the times he’d placed himself in front of me today were intentional. He was trying to prove he could give me what I’d been asking for. Even in his anger, even in his hurt, he was trying to prove himself.
And it was wearing on him in a way I’d never seen anything.
Rubbing my hands over my face, I blew out a strained breath and looked back at the man in front of me. “I wish you would have told—” The rest of the words caught in my throat when I caught a glimpse of one of Kieran’s tattoos. It was small and irrelevant, placed on his bicep among a variety of others.
But it was in the exact spot as Dare’s, only Kieran’s was a solitary vertical line.
It was something he’d had for years, longer than I could remember, and one I’d always dismissed.
I moved toward him without realizing it, without remembering he needed space, and traced a shaking finger over the tattoo. “What is that?”
He sighed, a look of frustration settling on his face as he dropped his arms to fold them over his chest. “It’s me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said when he didn’t elaborate.
“Aric had a circle,” he said after a few moments. “When he died, Beck got the circle.”
Lines and circles.
