Page 11 of Till Death Do Us Part

I let out a short, derisive laugh. “My mother was dead. And my father was the one who was training me.”

“Your father was?” She whipped back, looking at me. “He did this to you?”

For a second, it flashed back in my mind. There were so many memories that burned when I held them, but the one I always tried the hardest not to go near was the rooftop, and it seared viscerally back into my mind at the moment. When I saw the drop down to ground below, how I’d clutched the fence and cried. And the raw panic when I heard his voice snarling behind me.

The burning, cutting feeling on my face. The sound of my own scream.

No.

“He had to,” I said, forcing myself back to the present. I couldn’t dwell on these things. “They were going to kill the rest of us, too.”

“Who’s they?”

“Whitecliffs. They killed my mother. Wanted the rest of us, too. My father wanted to protect us. Wanted revenge, too. But it doesn’t matter. Drove him mad, in the end. He was killed, too.”

Her lips quivered. “Vera… by the Whitecliffs?”

“No.” I looked down at my hands, seeing them, for just a second, as if they were covered in blood. “By me.”

“Oh my God.”

“Enough. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. That’s the last we’re ever going to discuss that subject.”

She nodded, her eyes falling back to my arm, where she was almost done. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“So, now I get to ask a question, right?”

“Of course.”

“Are you single?”

She snorted strangely, scrunching up her face. “I’m sorry?”

“I said, are you single?”

“Um…” She blushed, looking up at me with a combination of shyness and confusion. “Yes…? How come?”

“Interested in women?”

“Are you… um… hitting on me?”

I laughed. “A step further. I’m asking you to marry me.”

Chapter 5

elaine

I’m asking you to marry me.

My head spun. What?

I must have misheard her. But that look she was giving me…

“You’re… joking, right?” I said through a thin laugh.

She smiled roguishly. “I’m not so bad, am I?”

“So you are. Joking, I mean.”