Under Your Scars (Under Your Scars, #1)

by Ariel N. Anderson

“I don’t want to kill you, angel. I want to keep you all to myself. You’d better take off those rose-colored glasses and accept that the only place you belong is in my black heart.”

“If you’re so concerned about my humanity, Elena, then reach into my soul and find it, because I’m not sure I have any left.”

“And now I’ve got a whole section of my brain dedicated solely to you, and I think about more than just the next day. I see next week. I see next month. I see next year. I see

I need to love her so violently that it breaks her, and then fill in all those cracks with gold until the only thing holding her together is me.

falling in love was like some nuclear catalyst inside me. I’ve been consumed by it—by you. I can’t think about anything else except how much I want you to be mine to love, forever.”

I will love you forever. Even when we’re nothing but bones in the ground, I will find you in the afterlife and cherish you like I always have. I will hold you and kiss you and fall asleep with you wrapped in my arms.

I will chase away all your demons because you know I’m scarier than they’ll ever be.

Elena’s version of perfect is different than mine. She wants trust. She wants that sickeningly sweet kind of love that gives her cavities. I’ve never had a cavity, but I guess it’s never too late.

Safe isn’t a place. It’s the people that love you.

Let our love be simple and let it be complicated too. Let me see all of you, the parts of you that you keep hidden under your scars. Make me fall even more deeply in love with all the dark parts of you. The parts you think are unlovable.

“I can’t live without you, Elena. My heart will never belong to anyone else. I’m not religious and I don’t believe in an afterlife, but if there’s even a slight chance that I get to spend an eternity with you, I want to do it properly. For whatever amount of time we have to spend together, I want to be yours. Fully. In your heart and on paper.”

“I used to get off on the thought of breaking you, but now it fills me with fear. I have to be gentle with you now. If I break you one more time, I may never find all the pieces again.”

“What if I want you to break me?” I ask, my eyes not leaving his. “What if I don’t want you to be gentle?” “Then I’ll love you violently instead.”

I can give an angel her wings. But I can clip them, too, if it means I get to spend forever with her.

“I love you so much it makes me insane. I love you so much it makes me dangerous. I love you so much that I would burn this world for you and all the people in it just to keep you all to myself.

“I met Death.” I take my bottom lip in my teeth. “And?” Christian brushes a strand of hair back from my face, and looking deeply into my eyes, he whispers, “I told him to go fuck himself, because I’m not going anywhere without you.”