Page 51 of The Edge of Darkness

“I feel different,” I admitted.

She immediately sat up. “Tell me.”

I blew out a breath and crossed my arms behind my head on the pillow. “Something Ramil used on me seems to have triggered everything I’ve worked so hard to suppress.”

Fuck. This all sounded so⁠—

“You’re not weak,” she said in a stern voice, placing her hand over my heart.

She’d guessed my thoughts before I’d even given voice to them. And damnit if that didn’t make me fall even more in love with her.

“I feel weak though. Not physically, just . . . Maybe weak isn’t the right word. Vulnerable? I don’t know. It’s like my control slipped and I can’t recover like I used to.”

Her voice lowered to barely more than a whisper. “What, exactly, happened, Niall? Aside from the iron nails?”

I internally cringed at the thought of those spikes being driven into my inner thighs, but pushing away that memory only made room for one far more disturbing. “He used a hallucinogen. It broke into the recesses of my mind and made me relive certain memories that I don’t like to recall even in my right state of mind. Except . . . it warped them. It preyed on my worst fears and intertwined them with memories.”

I kept the visions of her being tortured to myself.

She remained quiet. Listening.

“It felt so real; I had a hard time believing it wasn’t.”

Her brows furrowed together as if she was trying to imagine it. “When I found you, you were stuck in whatever trance he had you in. It took me several tries to pull you out.”

“I didn’t believe you were truly there when I came out of it. And I thought that if you were truly there . . . I . . . I didn’t want to hurt you.”

She smiled gently. “You could never hurt me.”

But I could.

Not willingly—never willingly. But my shadowfire, this dark power inside me . . . I’d always known what it could do and what it was capable of. And ever since Ramil fucked with my mind, it had clawed at the surface more than once, testing my restraints.

Auren had seen a glimpse of what my shadowfire could do in Benmoor, when I’d turned those guards to ash on a whim, and that wasn’t even my full strength. That was just a crumb of it. This well of power inside me . . . it wasn’t as vast as hers, but it was still frighteningly deep. And if this darkness ever got out of my control . . .

I glanced up at her. She sat above me, playing with the ends of her hair, looking so perfect. So innocent.

She’d seen what I’d done in a singular moment of rage and clung to Remic. I knew she didn’t fear me, but witnessing the uncertainty in her eyes cracked my heart, and I never wanted her to feel that way about me ever again.

I reached up and cupped the side of her face, and she closed her eyes, the hair slipping through her fingers, her hand stilling.

“I would do anything to keep you from harm. And I would never let my power even touch you. I don’t ever want you to fear me.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “I love you.”

“And I love you. You are what kept me together down there. All I had to do was think about you, and I was somewhere else.”

She turned her head into my hand and planted a kiss on my palm.

“You saved me in more ways than one, Auren.”

Her eyes flicked to mine again, a bit of uncertainty still lingering there. Like she wasn’t sure she was able to be the saving grace where it really mattered.

I sat up, moving toward her. “Your presence grounds me. Your power—your very essence—steadies mine. I’ve never felt as calm and controlled as I do when you’re with me. All you have to do is speak my name, and I’m commanded by you.”

I wished she could see the truth of it in this moment. My heart was steady, my mind at ease. My power was leashed and quiet within me.

Her eyes danced between mine, and she leaned in to kiss me. I slid my tongue between her sweet lips and kissed her back, slowly, deeply. Then I pulled away and placed my forehead against hers. “You know I’d tear the world apart for you, don’t you?”