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“What if he survives?”
Stepping into her, I placed my stained hands over her shoulders.
She flinched.
My heart spasmed.
“Are you afraid of me, Neri?” I breathed. “Do you hate me now?”
It took an endless moment before the tension in her spine faded and she sucked on her bottom lip. “I’m not afraid of you, Aslan.”
“Are you sure? Do I repulse you? Standing here, covered in blood, struggling to remember how to be a man and not a monster?”
Her hand came up and cupped my cheek, shaking a little. “I love that man...and that monster.”
A guttural groan of stark relief escaped me. My chin dipped to my chest; my forehead kissed hers. “I’m so sorry, Neri. For all of it. For what he did...and for what I did in return.”
The fear in her eyes faded, burning up in the fire of surviving. “Thank you. For coming for me.”
“Always.” I nudged her nose with mine. “I’ll always come for you. I’m just so sorry I was too late.” Running my thumbs over the delicate lines of her collarbones, I murmured, “I hope he dies tonight. I hope his flesh is torn from his bones by a thousand hungry teeth, but at least this way...his fate isn’t up to us to decide.” I pulled away a little, staring into her crystal eyes. “It’s the sea’s.”
“The sea might choose to save him,” she whispered.
“It could. Just like it saved me and devoured my family.” My voice hardened. “The ocean claimed good, honest people and left me alone, all when it should’ve been me in their place instead.”
“What—?”
“The sea looked into my heart and mocked me by keeping me alive. Ethan can pass the same test. He merely has to swim to shore.”
“But he’s hurt.”
“He is. But so was I. I was broken and bleeding when you found me.”
Her eyes welled with tears. “I was always going to find you.”
“I know.” I kissed her gently, expecting her to recoil but grateful that she didn’t. “This, us, is the reason the sea spat me out. You were what I was searching for without even knowing it. And now that I’ve found you? Nothing can keep us apart because...I need you. I need you to stay human. I need you to stay good. I need you to stop this curse and—”
“Curse? What curse?”
I sighed, struggling with the truth and so many lies.
I’d hidden from the truth for five years.
I wanted to keep hiding.
I’d never breathed a word of it to anyone.
But after tonight, I owed her.
I owed her the truth about who I truly was.
“There are things about me that I haven’t told you, Neri. Things that I didn’t know until the night my family boarded that smuggler’s boat.”
“What things?” she whispered.
“Bad things.” I flinched. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not...good.”
“You’re the best man I know.”
