Tooseen.
“Stop.”
“Never.”
I moan, almost tripping again. “I … I thought you were …”
“Dead?” he bites out, the word a stabbed conviction that slides between my ribs and pokes into something squishy. “I was.”
My face crumbles, more tears leaking down my cheeks, melding with the rain. If anything, it only makes him look at me harder.
Fiercer.
His head banks to the side as he stalks me deeper into the jungle, forcing me to nip glances over my shoulder, dodging more debris with each fumbled step. “Did it make you feel better,Serren?Watching me bleed for you?”
Another flinch.
Another wave of thorny, chest-buckling pain I don’t know how to handle.
My back collides with something hard and cold—a large slab of blue stone that’s nowhere near as brutal as Rhordyn’s body when he powers into me, punching breath from my lungs again. With a mighty strike of his hand, he stabs the talon into the stone right beside my head.
I gasp, every cell in my body shaking with adrenaline.
He remembers my name …
My silent sobs turn into deep, guttural sounds that are ugly and messy and bubble up my throat and nose as he tips my head with a pinch of my chin, forcing me to look into his ebony eyes. Forcing me to face my messy expression ricocheting back. “Did. It. Make. You. Feel. Fucking. Better?”
My mouth opens; closes.
I want to speak. To tell him I didn’t want to live in a world without him.
That I still don’t.
I want to tell him that I don’t just love him. That a single four-letter word could never define the way I feel, nor could it explain the way my soul bled with his absence, driving me to do things that will always stick to my skin like a layer of filth.
I want to tell him I was blind.
Hurting.
That my self-hatred bled off the page and tainted him because I was sick. Traumatized. That I had no idea how to ask for help, or tell him I wasn’t okay.
That I’m still not.
That my chest is so full of thorny things I’m too afraid to touch. To handle.
But I can’t tell him any of that because the people I love get struck down with an axe or my own caustic power. They get fed to the sharks.
The people I love die.
“Answer me, Milaje.”
The words are a blunt force that rattles me all the way to the core. They punch down my throat, rip truths from my heart, and pull them out—their dangled roots dripping blood all over the both of us. “No. I’ve never felt such unbearable pain …”
Something softens in his gaze as I suck a gasp, my throat raw, like I just breathed fire through it. I heave breath, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t stop pinching my chin or forcing me to look in his eyes.
“Then I guess it’s good your aim was off.” His next exhale is an icy blast battering my lips. “Now, I need you to listen because I’m only going to say this once.”
He drops my chin and pushes so close I can feel all the bulging slabs of his rock-hard body. Can feel the solid evidence of his want for me.
