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It feels as though the ground is caving in beneath me. Why couldn’t we have just stayed in that field of poppies? I would spend the rest of my days making her flower crowns if she wanted to be a queen. My queen. Not Kitt’s. Not Ilya’s. Mine.
His mouth hovers dangerously close to my own. Especially so considering the distraction I’m seeking—and every inch of him will most definitely do the trick. I want him desperately. Recklessly. And the embodiment of those feelings falls from my lips in the form of a single, traitorous sentence. “So slip it off.”
I am betrothed to the king, and yet, my heart beats for his brother.
It is cruel, not being able to call him mine after everything we’ve endured.
“Cocky bastard,” she whispers. “Pretty Pae.”
I’m breathless at the sight of her, doomed by the hope of having her. It’s a beautiful ruin, a devastating devotion. This girl holds my heart in her hands, could crush it between her fingers and still have me thanking her for the touch.
“Damn fate, and duty, and every other word meant to keep us apart.” Tears slip from those blue eyes I would happily drown in. “I want to hide with you beneath the willow tree. You are the secret I will spend the rest of my life keeping.” Her voice quivers beneath the weight of such a promise. “Us.” That alone is enough to have tears springing to my eyes. So I nod. Her face in my hands, my heart in hers.
You think I would not beg to run away with you? My duty may be to the king, but my heart, Pae, is wherever you are. It is in the palm of your hands, the pad of your thumb. So if you leave, I will follow. If you stay, I will bow. Because there has never been a moment when you did not own the only piece of me that mattered—loving you made me matter. And I ache to be full again.
“Paedyn, I love you. Like nothing else before, I love you. And I’ve been waiting to tell you since I realized your eyes are my favorite color and your freckles the only constellation worth looking at. I could lie—say that you’ve stolen my every thought and heartbeat like the thief you are, but all of me was already yours. Pae, you are my inevitable.”
“No part of you will go unloved.”
“I love you, Pae.” I say this sternly, unforgivingly. “And I am honored to get the chance to.”
“There is nothing I regret more than not having the time with you.”
And if, in the next lifetime, you choose to steal from me again, I would happily give you my soul if it meant a place beside yours.
