Page 126 of Kneel Before Me

He chuckled softly, and the sound was like a waterfall. “You do not understand yourself.”

Nobody had ever said anything like that to her before. Daphne was fairly positive that she understood herself quite well, actually. “That’s not a fair thing to say.”

“Is it not?” He tilted his head, considering her. “You are formidable.”

Daphne blinked. Never, in her twenty years of life, had a man called her formidable. “You’re formidable.”

Kronos just shook his head, as if he was in on a secret she wasn’t privy to. “Perhaps to you.”

“Perhaps to everyone.”

He shook his head again, arching his neck to look at the ceiling. “Daphne,” he murmured. “Please.”

“Please what?” She said it louder than she meant to.

Both of them fell silent, and for a moment, Daphne listened to make sure her mother wasn’t awake. When no sound came from the room beside them, she lowered her voice.

“If you keep being cryptic, I’m not going to be frightened anymore. Just annoyed.”

He smiled at that. “Annoyance is preferable.”

“Not to me.”

“Daphne.” He leaned closer, and she finally stilled. “When I say you are formidable, I am not speaking of physical strength. I am referring to the hold you have on me. I am frightened of how much space you occupy in my heart. In this way we are no different.”

“So… You’re frightened of feelings too.”

“Yes.” He gave her a small smile. “I suppose I am.”

They were quite the pair. The ferocious basilisk and the human woman, both scared of each other. Both scared of their hearts. Daphne sighed. “I don’t think we can solve this tonight.”

Kronos nodded. “Perhaps not.”

“Should we…just…go to sleep?”

There were a hundred things she would rather do in this bed than go to sleep. But her mother was right next door. And what Kronos had just revealed felt…heavy. Anything they did immediately after such a confession would hold too much weight—would mean too much.

Kronos nodded again. He lay back down, pulling Daphne with him. They curled together beneath the blankets, holding each other close.

“I will most likely be gone when you wake,” Kronos murmured into her hair.

Anxiety tugged at her chest. “Why?”

“It is not wise for me to linger in the village in the daylight.”

Daphne nodded against his chest. She understood. But she didn’t want him to go. In honor of their recent shared intimacy, she decided to say so. “I wish you could stay.”

Kronos sighed. “I wish I could too.”

Cradled in the arms of a monster, Daphne fell asleep.

True to his word, he was gone when she woke.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Caspen

Biting Kronos had taken mere moments. Caspen had left him in the forest and returned to his chambers to test his newfound power. The well of power within Caspen was familiar; it was his own. Now he reached elsewhere, searching with his mind for another source. A moment later, he found one. Caspen knew immediately that it was Kronos; somehow it felt like him. Without hesitating, Caspen pulled. Immediately, power came to him. It felt nothing like his own—nothing like the power he had wielded all his life. This power was dangerous. Unwieldy. Foreign. Caspen gasped as the barest trace of it entered him, mixing with his to create a strange concoction that was difficult to control. Caspen had never felt anything this powerful before. Did all basilisks feel like this, or was it unique to Kronos? And then, almost before it had begun, it stopped. The source was closed; the energy was gone. Caspen could draw no more power.