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“You’re hurting.”
Understanding donned and I instinctively looked away. It wasn’t possible he’d seen my face when he woke up.
The room was too dark. I hadn’t even been facing his direction. It threw me off-kilter having him in tune with my emotions. He knew me in a way that would allude we’d been close for far longer than this.
“Don’t do that,” he admonished and pulled me across the bed until my side was pressed against his.
“Don’t hide ever hide from me. I would never judge you.”
The ire and sincerity in his tone threatened the barrier I’d erected to keep myself protected. I wasn’t used to this kind of unwavering devotion from anyone other than my sisters. A few weeks ago, my abuelo. I wasn’t sure why he seemed to care so much.
For me, this all came about because of our shared interest in saving our siblings and dismantling the helm of the Serpines. Ciaran was making it abundantly clear he’d had me on his agenda before this situation arose.
I wouldn’t deny I enjoyed what we’d done. I would never regret him being my first or doing the oath given the reasons behind it. Being next to him wasn’t all bad either. It gave me a sense of comfortability I’d never had in this capacity.
When he talked to me during our intermissions I listened to every word.
We really were a lot alike.
All of this was a major problem.
I liked him more than I should’ve. I had no idea what the future held, but one thing was for certain. Ciaran and I were a tragedy waiting to happen. It would all be because of me. I was the tragic one. He had no flaws. He was perfectly twisted.
I was still trying to find my way down the path I thought I’d begun to pave. This major deviation shined a light down on it and showed I hadn’t really gotten anywhere. I wasn’t going to give up, but he was lightyears ahead of me.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Will you not do that again?” I tried to pull away from him and his grip immediately tightened around my hand.
“Stop letting you be alone? No. I suggest you get the fuck over it. You’re stuck with me until death and every lifetime after.”
My jaw slackened. I slowly shook my head back and forth. “Ciaran, we can’t have a secret…thing for the rest of our lives. You said you’d help me and somehow, I’m an asset to you. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” he repeated back with an edge in his tone. “I’m not sure what kind of bullshit is going on inside that beautiful head, but this isn’t a thing. Do you honestly think I needed an oath of this magnitude to help you?”
“No, but you’d need leverage for me to agree to it,” I argued.
“If I wanted leverage, I can think of a million different ways to get it.”
All of this was ringing true. He hadn’t needed the oath to help me, but I’d misunderstood something in the translation and believed it was, in fact, for leverage until one second ago.
“Are you hellbent on repeating history that’s still playing out in a very bad way?”
“What I am is fucking obsessed with you.”
“You’re obsessed with me?”
“To the point that I used to think of nothing but fucking or killing you, but then I started to like you, so I decided it was better to keep you alive and by my side.”
I leaned away and stared at him. He’d admitted that so casually like it was an everyday topic of conversation.
“Eventually we’ll fall in love,” he added after making note of my expression.
I almost laughed. I wasn’t sure he could fall in love. Ciaran had some stellar psychopathic tendencies. He couldn’t be a full-blown psycho because he did seem capable of loving.
He could feel something close to remorse as well if his attitude towards his brother was anything to go off.
I wasn’t the most stable person up top and had a moral compass that occasionally stopped ticking, so I couldn’t judge. As for this plan he had concocted? I didn’t know where to begin with that.
“Have you perhaps forgotten I’m a Serpine? Those snakes you hate so much?”
“You’re not a snake, you never have been.” He pulled me closer until his face was a breath away from mine. “The only thing that you are now is mine.”
Trying to temper the pounding of my heart, I let my eyes dip to his lips, flying back up when I realized those were too much of a distraction. “I don’t understand.”
“I know. Right now, you don’t need to” He settled back against the headboard and guided my head to his chest.
I didn’t know how to navigate the minefield of this situation. There were so many complexities to sort through.
“Are we sure we can do this?”
