Page 125 of Kneel Before Me

“A happy one.”

“You can’t predict that. It would be difficult for us—you know it would.”

“I have never shied away from difficult things, Daphne. I did not take you for someone who did either.”

She simply shook her head again. At her expression, he brushed his lips gently over hers.

“Life without love is simply time wasted,” Kronos murmured. “And I do not wish to waste any more time.”

At his words, Daphne froze. He hadn’t told her he loved her yet—technically he still hadn’t told her now. But his statement strongly implied that love was on the table. It was too terrifying a thought to consider.

“You’re a basilisk,” she whispered. “I…don’t know how to trust you.”

Despair flashed in his eyes. Even in the dark, it was unmistakable. Daphne knew her words had hurt him. But she also knew she needed to say them.

Instead of the anger or indignation she expected, Kronos sighed, tucking a curl behind her ear. “I understand,” he said softly.

“Do you?”

“Of course. I would feel the same in your position.”

“My position?”

He shifted, and the motion nearly forced another whimper from her lips. “I understand that you are…wary of me.”

Wary was only the start. The odds were stacked against them; the humans and the basilisks had been on opposing sides for centuries. Nothing could bring them together. There was no way for this to work.

“I’m terrified of you,” she whispered. “I’m terrified of…us.”

If he looked hurt before, he looked devastated now. Daphne was almost surprised by his reaction. Perhaps some distant part of her still believed he wasn’t capable of feeling the way she was. But that was a lie, like so many of the other lies she had been told about the basilisks. They were just as empathetic as humans were.

“That…saddens me,” Kronos said simply.

They stared at each other. Daphne wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how. There was probably nothing she could say anyway.

Kronos shifted, leaning away as if he wanted to give her space. “Have I…done something specific to make you feel that way?”

It wasn’t that he’d done anything. He simply was. “You haven’t done anything.”

“Then why are you terrified of us?”

Daphne thought of the way Benjamin and the other boys had taunted her and Maximus. What would the villagers say of her and Kronos?

“Because being with you is a risk,” she whispered.

“What we have is worth the risk.”

Daphne wanted to believe that. He was constantly telling her she was worth it: worth the price, worth the risk. But these were not facts—they were opinions, and given Daphne’s past, it was difficult to share them.

“How can you be sure?”

Kronos observed her calmly, his golden eyes on hers. “Basilisks believe in fate.”

That may be true. But even Kronos could not predict the future—could not account for the troubles that were destined to plague them. Kronos sat up fully. Daphne looked at him, at his bare chest, covered in dried blood. She sat up too, and silence fell as they studied each other. Kronos was a man of few words; she knew that. Yet he communicated with her anyway. He said so much just with his eyes, which held Daphne’s with a tenderness she found unnerving. It was hard to believe that those same eyes were capable of turning her to stone.

“Have you ever considered that I am frightened of you too?” he whispered.

Daphne raised her eyebrows. She had certainly never considered that. “No. I’m not frightening.”