Page 149 of Kneel Before Me

“Daphne,” he whispered when she didn’t answer, “you could not be more wrong.”

She looked up at him. He was looking at her with his brow furrowed, his lips pursed into a flat line. His hand rose tentatively, then dropped, as if he didn’t want to push her.

“I just want to be like everyone else.”

Kronos shook his head. “You are nothing like everyone else. You are sensational.”

Daphne almost laughed.

“I am serious, Daphne. And if you do not believe me, look no further than the prince. He loves you.”

Daphne scoffed. “He wants to fuck me.”

“As he should.”

Daphne knew it was a veiled compliment. But his words hit something tender in her chest, right where she was the most vulnerable. Daphne had never had a problem with men wanting to fuck her. Now she wanted something deeper.

“Even you just wanted to fuck me at first,” she whispered. “Admit it.”

Kronos held her eye contact. “Perhaps at first,” he said. “But then you became…more. You became someone I cherish.”

She shook her head, unable to process what he was saying. Basilisks couldn’t lie. Yet it was inconceivable to Daphne that someone like him could cherish someone like her.

“Maximus only thinks he loves me,” she said, trying to deflect. “But he only loves the parts of me he chooses to see.”

“All parts of you are worth loving. He is an imbecile if he does not know that.”

“He’s not an imbecile. He’s just—”

“Daphne,” Kronos said firmly. “If you defend him again, I am going to become angry.”

“I’m not defending him. I’m just saying that—”

“You are saying that just because an imbecile does not love you, you are unlovable.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. When he put it that way, it sounded pathetic. Perhaps it was. Benjamin was an imbecile, wasn’t he? Every boy who had taken her under the bridge could be described that way. None of them had loved her, and none of them mattered.

“It just feels like there’s something wrong with me,” she whispered.

“Daphne,” his voice dropped. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

He said it gently, healing wounds in her that he hadn’t even caused. She remembered what he’d told her the first night they met: There is no shame in being lost. As long as you are willing to be found. Kronos had found her.

“I will not tell you I love you,” he said quietly. “Because I know you are not ready to hear it. But when I do, all I ask is that you do what you requested of me.”

Daphne frowned. What had she requested of him?

Kronos leaned closer, brushing his lips against hers. “You must try to let me in.”

Daphne thought she already had. But now she understood that her walls were still up—that the protective barrier she’d built around her heart extended to Kronos as well. She was scared of so much more than just being vulnerable with him. She was scared of being vulnerable at all.

“But I’m human,” she whispered. “And you’re a basilisk.”

“Those are simply facts. They have no bearing on my heart. I am telling you how I feel, Daphne. It is up to you to believe it.”

Daphne fell silent. She did believe it. It was hard not to when he laid it out like that. But that didn’t mean it was easy for her. Kronos brushed his fingers under her chin, raising it.

“This is all I want. You are all I want. There was no one before you, and there will be no one after. You have given me a purpose that is greater than myself. If this is all the time we have together, it will have been worth it.”