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“It’s no more your choice now than it was then. I claimed you, Shatter. I decided you were mine. I took you from your mates,and I never asked you. I won’t abandon that claim because it costs me.” My lip trembled as he still found new words to knock me flat.
“If this is what it takes to put you back together, this is what I’ll do.” He tucked my damp hair behind my ear, the smallest smile playing on his lips. “And see, now you’re far more concerned about my scars than yours.”
At his gall to smile, I burst into full-blown tears. “B-because you b-brandedyourself.”
“Do you believe my claim now?”
I couldn’t answer that, but he hadn’t released my chin, and I was still drowning in his intense eyes and the comforting scent of midnight opium.
“Do you?”
With a choked sob, I nodded.
“I love you. It should never have taken you this long to be sure of that,” he said, wiping my tears since I couldn’t. “I’ve wanted you every day, from the moment I met you. They never had the power to change that, Shatter.” His hands traced my body, somehow perfectly avoiding all the wounds, as if they were already fixed to his memory.
I stared at him. He had seen it all and still hadn’t wavered.
I think… I think this is what love meant.
I didn’t realise until now how much I hadn’t dared believe I was destined for love. Not even with my mates.
Dusk was sitting up and freeing my wrists. “Decebal’s on his way. He’s going to wait until tomorrow to take a look at you, but he’ll flay me if I don’t clean these.”
“Who?”
“Ransom’s contact. He helps us with… a lot of shit, actually. But he’s medically trained.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Dusk got to his feet and headed to the bathroom. I sat up watching him open the medical kit. After he began digging inside it, I clambered out of bed and crossed toward him, nursing a little anxious ache that rose now he wasn’t in the same room as me.
He glanced up when I clutched my arm, leaning against the doorframe and trying not to look too creepy as I hovered. Maybe I should act like I came here for a reason.
I peered through the huge pile of clothing on the floor as a distraction, trying not to think about what they had meant for me, even an hour ago.
“Ransom… he’s awake…?”
Dusk’s eyes lit up in a way I’d never seen, a smile curving his lips as if he couldn’t help it. “You saved him,” he said as he pulled apart some gauze.
I tried to bury the flutter of panic in my stomach at that thought. Tomorrow I would see Umbra and Ransom after… after everything.
I don’t know why Dusk was safer.
Perhaps, it was what he’d said… He’d never asked. But Umbra was different… Dusk had claimed me, but Umbra was stuck with me. And he was such a beautiful person, and I was such a mess.
And Ransom…
Oh…
I swallowed.
He’d grown up in one of the wealthiest families in New Oxford. What was he going to think of me when he met me?Really…really met me. I had just been an omega with a scent he didn’t hate (somehow) and I was just there at the right time.
“He already loves you,” Dusk said, catching my expression. “He’ll only fall harder when he meets you.”
I said nothing, chewing on that and trying really hard to believe it.
I felt like I was teetering between this safety with Dusk, and a void of darkness below. He dressed his wounds and then mine, and when he was done, he took us back to the bed and held me close, still careful around the bites.
