Page 249 of Kneel Before Me

“Daphne,” he said. “I need you.”

Daphne had no doubt that was true. But it didn’t mean she needed him.

“I don’t just want you because I can’t have you,” he insisted. “I have always wanted you, and you know it. Since the moment I met you.”

Daphne stared down at him in bewilderment. “How can you say that? You met me when I was holding your child. You were furious with me.”

“Have you ever considered that I wasn’t furious? That I was just in shock? That perhaps I liked the way you looked holding my child? That you looked…right…together.”

Daphne’s mouth fell open in shock. She’d never heard anything like this from Maximus before. It was absolutely out of character for him to admit something so vulnerable, so tender. And it was for precisely that reason that she didn’t trust it. He was manipulating Daphne in this moment, using vulnerability as a tool to sway her. He had always been this way: coveting what he couldn’t have. What Maximus felt for her wasn’t real. It was lust but not love. Not true love, the way she loved Kronos. Maximus loved the idea of her. Kronos loved her.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not?” he said. “Are you afraid to hear them?”

“I’m not—”

“Or are you simply afraid?”

Daphne shook her head. There was no point in denying it; he wasn’t listening to her anyway. And she was not afraid. Not anymore.

“Perhaps you don’t wish for me to speak because you do not want to consider the truth.”

“And what truth is that?”

“That you care for me.”

Daphne shook her head again, but Maximus wasn’t done.

“You care for me, Daphne. I know you do. We have shared too many moments together for you to deny it.”

“We haven’t shared—”

“We have,” he said sharply. “And you know it.”

“Just stop. Please.”

“I won’t stop until you admit it you have feelings too.”

“Then you’ll never stop.”

“Fine. Then I never will.”

Anger began to coil within Daphne. Maximus wasn’t listening to her. He was ignoring how she felt, ignoring what she was saying with perfect conviction. Kronos would never stifle her like this. It was the fundamental difference between them. Kronos listened. Maximus didn’t. It was hardly even his fault; he was a prince—he’d been taught that his voice should be the loudest in the room. But Daphne was not interested in being spoken over. She had been spoken over her entire life, right up until her last night under the bridge. The moment she met Kronos was the moment she’d found her voice. She’d drawn a boundary with him, a terrifying one—and he had respected it. Maximus was not doing the same.

“I’m not an option, Max,” she said firmly. “You’ve always known that. You used to respect it.”

For the first time, his eyes went completely cold. “How can I respect someone who is in love with a snake? What can he possibly offer you that I cannot?”

So much.

“I could give you everything, Daphne,” Maximus said desperately. “Everything. Anything you wanted, for the rest of your life, you would have it with me.”

Daphne just shook her head. “I don’t want anything you can give me.”

A sickly silence fell. Daphne watched as the gears turned in Maximus’s brain. It was suddenly so quiet that she could hear her own heartbeat. She stood there, staring at him, the tides of fate shifting undeniably against her.

He would be angry now. It was time to brace herself for it. “He’s a snake, Daphne,” Maximus whispered. “He isn’t capable of love.”