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I lifted my gaze to his, watching him blink as if to stave off tears. “We survived. We made it. He didn’t. He’s gone.” Climbing over top of him, I straddled his body and gripped his face, staring intently into the beautiful blue. “We survived hell. Together.”
His finger trailed down my temple, and he pushed a stray hair behind my ear. “I shiver when I look at you. Because every cell in my body knows you are the only creature capable of destroying me. The only thing in this world I would die for.” His hand gripped the back of my neck, and he pulled me into him for a kiss.
The chaos from before stirred inside of me again. The memory of Claudius’s cold, slimy lips pressed to mine had my brain reeling. Part of me wanted to push Jericho away, the disgust so overwhelming that a tickle of nausea stirred in my chest.
It’s Jericho. Jericho! Claudius is dead!
Screwing my eyes shut, I breathed hard through my nose and felt a cold detachment slip between the two of us. When I opened my eyes again, Jericho stared up at me.
“Farryn, if you need time—”
“No. No!” Anger pulsed inside of me, the rage of knowing Claudius had gotten so deep inside my head as to worm his way between Jericho and me. I threaded my fingers into his hair, gripping tight. “Make me forget him, Jericho. Fuck him right out of my head,” I said through clenched teeth. “Make me forget everything.”
Gripping tight to me, he flipped us over, putting him on top, and he loomed over me like a starless night. A nightmare in a dream.
I needed this. I needed him. He was the only thing more terrifying than the monster. The dark angel sent to deliver me from the hell that still burned inside my mind. I needed to distance myself from Infernium and what happened to me. Us. All of us.
I needed distraction from the noise inside my head, the nightmares that were sure to come.
“Are you certain about this, Farryn? I will wait for you. An eternity, if that’s what it takes.”
‘I don’t have to kill you to make you feel dead inside.’Claudius’s words echoed inside my head, stirring rage in the pit of my stomach.
“Yes, I am certain. Get him out of my head. Please. I don’t want to feel branded by what he did to me. Used and worthless.” A tear wobbled down my cheek, captured by Jericho’s thumb as he wiped it away.
“You are far from worthless, Tu’Nazhja. There is nothing I treasure more in all the realms than you.Ma’ baalirhya diszhra.”
“What does it mean?”
“My most treasured possession.”
In spite of his sweet and loving words, I knew better. There were things inside of me that crawled like slugs. Hatred that would never wither. Loathing that would never die. Deep seated memories of my former life, Lustina’s life, and the abuse she suffered, horrific things that I could never tell Jericho for fear of breaking him, shattering him into pieces too small to compartmentalize. I had not only suffered at the hands of a monster, but I’d murdered a friend. There was nothing to redeem me. Neither his words, nor his love could pull me out of that fragmented place inside my head whose sharp edges would poke at me for eternity.
Yet, through tears, I smiled. “I love you.”
He cupped my face, stroking his thumb over my cheekbone, his expression wary. “Whatever wretched and vile thing lives beneath this flesh and these bones belongs to you. I am yours eternally. And you are mine.”
“Then, take me away from all this darkness.”
I lifted my hips, nudging him up to his knees, and he stared down at me as he slid my panties off. The scars from the carving on my stomach caught my attention, and apparently his, as he ran his fingers over it. Tears welled again as I waited for him to say something, to know what thoughts churned inside his head.
“The steel was celestial. I tried to heal it, but it cannot be altered by my powers.”
I settled back against the pillow and turned away from him. Toxic and poisonous words snaked their way into my head.
Useless. Dirty. Whore.
Even if it wasn’t my language, I knew the intent behind Claudius’s malicious carving.
Tipping his head, Jericho guided my attention back, and I closed my eyes to keep from having to look at him.
“Open your eyes, Farryn.”
“I can’t.”
“If you think a few scars on your body changes the way I view you, then allow me to show you how wrong you are.” At the first soft touch, my eyes shot open to find him bent over me, his lips pressed to the carved lines. “You.” He kissed another of the strange letters. “Are.” And another. “So fucking.” And still another. “Beautiful.” Taking hold of my leg, he draped it over his shoulder and planted a kiss to my inner thigh. “And you are mine. These scars are mine. Yourpainis mine.” He stared down at me with such intensity, I had to look away, but a hook of his finger guided my eyes back to his. “Nothing can change what you are to me. No scar. No curse. Not even death.”
My body reeled with the urge to crawl away. Through tears, I shook my head, his words refusing to lay anchor in the mire of my thoughts.
