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“But it was when you kissed me that I truly feared what you’d done to me.”
“You’re not just a mission to me. You’re not just another enemy for me to find. You’re something even more terrifying.” Her voice is little more than a whisper. “And what is that?” “A need.”
“I thought you had found your courage,” she says softly. I smile slightly. “Maybe I’m fine with being a fool. So long as it’s for you.”
“I like talking about your soul,”
“Maybe,” he breathes, “I’m envious of it.” I swallow. “There is nothing about me to be envious of.” “Then you don’t know yourself well enough.”
“And the worst part,” he murmurs, “is that I’m supposed to hate you for it. But you are much harder to hate than he was.”
“I will wash your hair, okay? The blood won’t be there forever—”
Another tear escapes my eye when his lips brush against the pad of my thumb.
“You’re strong enough to wipe away your own tears, but too stubborn to let someone care for you,”
I bite my tongue at the sting that still shoots down my body, but the sound of her laugh is healing, capable of making a man forget his own name, let alone his pain.
It’s hard to believe that something so beautiful would willingly stare at the likes of me. I feel undeserving of her gaze, of the way her eyes roam over my face.
“Don’t look at me like that.” “Like what?” she asks softly. “Like I’m worthy of being seen.”
“Because I’ve always had a thing for short hair.”
“It’s true. Among other things, of course.” I shrug a shoulder. “Short hair. Ocean-blue eyes. Twenty-eight freckles. And”—I pause, examining her with a tilt of my head—“how tall are you?” She blinks in confusion. “Umm, about five and a half feet?” “Five and a half feet,”
“The terrifying ability to kick a man’s ass. Stunning smile. Ridiculously stubborn. Hair like molten silver. Quick to threaten me with a dagger.” I smile down at her. “Should I go on?”
“Say my name,” I whisper. “Please.”
“Scars.” I blink. “What?” “Scars,” he repeats. “Something else I’ve always had a thing for.”
“Plagues, I love that sound,” he murmurs, making me fall silent. “I would tattoo it into my skin if it meant you’d laugh at me for doing it.”
“I had no choice in the matter. Do you think I could have stopped it if I tried?” She shakes her head at me. “Stop what?”
“Stop myself from falling in love with you!”
“Out here I am Kai and nothing more.” His throat bobs. “Out here I am powerless. A monster without an ability to hide behind. An Enforcer free from his masks. A man shouting his love for a woman.”
“You asked me what my favorite color was once. I’d never even pondered the answer to that question before you. And yet, I realized in that moment that it was blue.” He bends to brush a kiss to my temple, a murmur against my skin. “It is your eyes.”
“Tell me you hate me, and I’ll still count every heartbeat, every freckle, every shiver of your body, if only you say it with a smile.”
“I may be a monster, but if you cut me, I’ll bleed. And if you break my heart, Pae, you’ll break me. So, if even a sliver of your soul longs for mine, I’ll spen...
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“Maybe you really are a poet,” I whisper. He smiles softly. “Or just a fool for you.”
“I have never had to pretend to want you.”
“Oh, but you are my undoing. My deliverance. My downfall disguised as a deity.” Another slow step. “You are my ruin.”
“Call us even. Call me crazy. I don’t care. Just…” His eyes are pleading, brimming with emotion. “Just call me yours.”
“Flicking my nose,” I repeat simply. “Something I’ve always had a thing for. Among others, of course.”
“That reminds me.” I nod. “Calling me ‘darling.’ Cocky bastards. Long, dark eyelashes…”
“Knowing what I need exactly when I need it. Ripping my dresses. Dimples that make me—”
“Have you really counted my freckles?” “All twenty-eight of them,” he breathes before kissing me hard. “Though, you might have more now from the sun.” Another quick kiss. “I’ll have to do a recount.”
Because wherever I love, people die. And I’d rather love him silently than mourn him loudly.
“Then I’ll spend the rest of my life tracking you down,” he says quietly. “Glimpsing you in the shadows. Fighting you in the streets. Dancing with you in my dreams. Because living without you is only bearable when I know you are out there still living too.”
“You are my proof of a paradise,”
“Touch her again,” he snarls, voice low, “and I’ll slit your throat. She’s mine.”
Every touch, every dance, every kiss disguised as distraction was anything but. Because before I loved her, I longed for her. She was a want I wasn’t worthy of. And I’m afraid I’ll never get the chance to deserve her.
“You are to be my bride.”
And to think I wasted so much time trying to hate her. To think I won’t have enough time to love her. My heart aches because every beat belongs to her. And I may never get to tell her that.
The king’s eyes are on me while mine are somewhere far away. Somewhere with her. A place where I am nothing and no one and happy being powerless, so long as she is beside me.
This is not how I will remember us. Not as enemies or traitors or monsters, but as two people dancing in the dark, swaying beneath the stars. Her feet atop mine, her head on the heart that beats only for her. Just Pae and Kai.
This will be the rest of my life. Forced to love her from a distance. Mourn the loss of her each day. But I will.
I will love her until I am incapable of the feeling. She is the torture I may not survive. Eagerly, she is my undoing.
She was supposed to be my forever. Now I’ll watch her become someone else’s. Because the beast doesn’t get the beauty.
