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September 18 - September 20, 2025
“Achieving the impossible will give me something to gloat about when I’m in hell.”
An apology is on the tip of my tongue, but he shakes his head as if sensing it.
Just because I’m cracked doesn’t mean I’m broken.
My room is a mixture of soft and dramatic tones, flowers and darkness. It’s as if Cayden stepped into my mind and didn’t miss a single detail.
I smile when I imagine Cayden frowning at fabric samples and smother my giggles with my hands when I pull a stack of colorful books toward me and note that they are all romances.
Cayden shouldn’t be the one to gift me this, and yet he is. It makes me wonder at all the details that have spilled from my lips, or have been revealed by my eyes, and remained insignificant and invisible to anyone but him.
Words have given me wings when I’ve needed an escape. Books breathe life into the mundane and have brightened the darkest of days for me with merely some pretty prose and hope.
I’ve always found peace in healing others because I don’t have the first clue on how to heal myself.
Cayden is so handsome, it’s impossible to look away.
it’s like the sound must make its way through rusty pipes after years of neglect. I’ve seen many expressions on him, but there’s something so beautiful about catching a genuine smile from someone who rarely deals them out. Happiness is my favorite thing he’s ever worn.
It doesn’t hit me until later that night that Cayden was the person to make my burden feel lighter, and to make me laugh when hopelessness surrounded me.
You’re a queen because you lead with your heart but wield your intelligence like the sharpest blade.”
He looks more like a dark prince than a commander, ready to whisk me away to his realm of terror and tragedy but never let either touch me.
“You look…” His husky tone makes my toes curl. “Beautiful is too mundane a word.”
“You’re the only one I speak of my dragons with. Nobody else close to me would know what these colors mean.”
“I do not believe your beauty needs any embellishment,
but that dress would have paled in comparison to you.”
No matter how hard I bite my lip, I can’t fight the smile that now sits on my face in plain sight for him.
“But it never would have measured up to you.”
“You told me to stay away from her? Now this is me telling you to do the same and there will be severe consequences if you don’t heed my warning.”
He treats me like a cherished secret he’ll keep to the grave.
He seems content to just stay there, looking at me. We’re dancing on the edge of a cliff without caution.
“Yes, you’re shackled to me for the foreseeable future.”
“You already had me.”
“It’s just you and me, angel. You keep those pretty eyes on me,”
don’t need a prince to validate my power or place in this world.
He glides our intertwined hands across my stomach, and they feel like they were made to do exactly this.
We feel like a melody long forgotten plucked from a shelf, dusted, and placed before a musician to remind the world of our tale.
“A monster, but for you, never to you.”
“When this night is over nobody in the kingdom will doubt how much I want you.”
He makes me feel like a living flame, and he’s the oxygen feeding me.
Cayden Veles is becoming my favorite mystery to uncover.
he’s on his knees before me. The man who bows and kneels for no king or god doesn’t hesitate to do so for me.
I’ve never knelt for a man before, but Cayden makes me feel empowered by the way he truly views me as his salvation and damnation in human form.
Being understood and accepted is one of the greatest forms of intimacy.
“But if you allow me, I’ll find a way to help you carry them when they get too heavy.”
“I use the memories as armor and ammunition. Nobody wins harder than someone who once lost everything.
“You’re so much braver than you believe, and stronger than you feel in this moment.”
He makes me feel like I don’t have to face every threat alone because he’ll be right here—unjudging, understanding, and just as bloody as me.
“I rather enjoy it when you threaten me.” Something comes alive in me when he slides his fingers down my face like I’m the most delicate thing he’s ever held. “Your enemies are my enemies, El. Never doubt that.”
Sometimes it feels like nothing can keep me away from him, that we’re destined to be drawn together,
the reality of our situation hurts me more than I want him to know.
“Even if a man even hardly touches you, it’ll be the last thing he does in this life. I told you not to make me into a better man than I am. For you, Elowen, I’ll become the worst version of myself.”
“Why do you believe I would let anything keep me from you? I’ve searched for you since I was a boy, when the whole world thought you were dead, when it seemed hopeless—I searched for you.”
“We’ve become deeper than power. You’ve driven me to madness. You haunt me while I sleep and you’re there when I wake. Your presence is agonizing and yet I’ll beg for the pain if it means I can have a moment with you.”
that doesn’t change the fact that you are the sweetest curse bestowed upon me.”
“Men are like carriages. If you miss one, then you just get on the next. Eventually they all start to blend together,
“Don’t retreat into your mind unless you’re taking me there with you.”
“Will you tell me why you came out here, or do you need silence?”
“You are a wildfire I have no intention of smothering, and I knew we would end up here from the second we struck the deal. I’ll always believe in you, even when you don’t know how.”
