Fearless (The Powerless Trilogy, #3)

by Lauren Roberts

My head whips around, unable to stop myself. Unable to focus on anything but the burning need to look at him. But it’s not his gray gaze I crash into. No, this one is brown, murky with blatant hatred. These are not the eyes I search for in every crowd. Not the eyes that rake over me with a reverence I revel in. Not the eyes that have counted every freckle dotting my nose, every shiver of my body.

I’ve been nothing but willing when it comes to drowning in those ocean eyes. But now, I can’t fathom drowning if she is not the anchor I’m sinking with.

There’s that anger again, washing over me in waves. Because she was meant to be the death of me, not the life of another.

My thumb drags lazily over her bottom lip. “Does that mean I have to drag you into a closet every time I want to touch you?”

“You’re not supposed to touch me at all.” “But you could command me to,” I drawl. “Then I’d simply be following an order.”

Paedyn is not a right or a wrong, not something as simple as a yes or a no. She is confusion itself, a feeling unplaced, a color between black and white. Hell, she is my Silver Savior. And hating her is not as simple as it may seem. But for me, it is not loving her that has proven to be difficult.

“We both know it will take more than a locked door to keep me from you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” “It’s not promises I care to keep—it’s you.”

I will be your Enforcer. Your rival. Your secret waiting beneath the willow.”

“So bow at my feet with a sneer, if you must. I won’t see it with your face to the ground.”

I’m being pulled closer, pressed flush against his solid body. With a tilt of my chin, he murmurs against my lips. “My pretty Pae. Tell me you missed me.”

“So damn the Trials. Pae, let me force every person in this kingdom to their knees for you.”

And when she kisses me, long and fierce, I realize how happily I’d live the rest of my life at the end of a blade. So long as she is the one holding it.

“Pae.” His voice is ragged. “I would lose my life for you before finding something else worth living for.” His fingers weave into my hair, slide along the back of my neck. “You are my inevitable. In life and in death.”

crumble in his arms. Nothing has ever tasted as sweet as the silent promise on his lips.

He tastes like a secret I wish to scream, a word on the tip of my tongue that will never be mine to utter.

This girl holds my heart in her hands, could crush it between her fingers and still have me thanking her for the touch.

Every moment with her is spent mourning the next, awaiting the day we speak for the last time.

Especially while I sit on your bed and try to stop myself from doing something rash with my future queen.”

She gives me a look. “You would not.” “Oh, darling, I would do so much worse if only you asked.”

It’s a piece of Death himself that lives within me. And now, I command it.