Stolen Heir (Brutal Birthright, #2)

by Sophie Lark

If I could just sit in the corner, totally invisible, and watch people walk by all night long, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I like trying to guess who’s a couple and who’s not, who’s celebrating their last day of exams and who came here with workmates. I love seeing people’s gestures and expressions, the way they dance and talk and laugh.

I can’t stand conflict. It’s practically pathological. I need to be loved.

Nothing about Nessa exudes strength. She’s not intimidating. But she is . . . intriguing. She’s a piece of music that gets stuck in your head, repeating over and over. The more you hear it, the more it lodges in your brain. Most people become predictable, the longer you watch them. Nessa Griffin is the opposite. I thought I knew exactly who she was—a sheltered little princess. A dancer living in a fantasy world. But she’s much cleverer than I gave her credit for. She’s creative, perceptive. And genuinely kind.

What I see is beautiful. Some things are the same—her kindness, her creativity. She was a running stream, sparkling in the sunshine. But her water runs deeper by the day. She’s becoming a lake, and then an ocean.

I see her, and she sees me. I was death, and she was life. I thought I’d had stolen her, brought her down to the underworld. All the while she was waking me up. Stirring the blood in my veins. Breathing air into my lungs.

Love is the one thing you can’t steal. You can’t create it, either. It either exists or it doesn’t. And if it exists, you can’t take it by force.

She’s so, so beautiful. If this is the last thing I ever see, I can die peacefully.

“You’re going to be okay,” she promises me. Probably not, but I won’t argue. I have to tell her something, while I still have time. “Do you know why I sent you away?” I ask her. “Yes,” she sobs. “Because you love me.” “That’s right,” I sigh.

And I want to know the real Mikolaj: passionate, loyal, unbreakable. I see it. I see who he is. I’m more than good, and he’s more than bad. We’re opposites, and yet made for each other.

“I know this will be difficult for you to understand, but I love Nessa. I love her more than I love my own soul. I would never hurt her. And that includes tearing her away from her family again.”

It does feel outrageously good. But it’s so much more than that. I feel connected to him, like we’re becoming one soul as well as one body of tangled flesh. I know he’s feeling what I’m feeling. Thinking what I’m thinking. He’s loving me as I’m loving him: insanely, without reason, without limit.

“I was a corpse when I met you, Nessa,” he says. “No breath. No heart. No life. I felt nothing. I cared about nothing. Then I saw you, and you woke me up inside. I was such a fool at first. I was so numb that I thought that spark must be hatred. If I was a normal person, I would have realized it was love. Love at first sight. From the second I laid eyes on you.”

“Your mother gave this to me. She knows that I love you. I love you more than money or power or my own life. I stole you, Nessa. And you stole my heart. It’s yours forever. I couldn’t take it back if I wanted to. So will you marry me?”