Fearless (The Powerless Trilogy, #3)

by Lauren Roberts

I thought I’d known torment until it wrapped around her finger. No, torment is tangible, and it gleams atop her tanned skin. I stare, unblinking, at the symbol my brother slid onto her finger. It is binding. It is infinite. It is my undoing. A laugh threatens to slip past my numb lips. It’s not as though she hadn’t promised to be my ruin, hadn’t already become my demise. She is the single most destructive thing I have ever desired, and yet, it is the diamond on her finger that will destroy me.

In love with a girl I’d have bowed to long before she became my queen.

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.

He’s quiet for several steps. “Somewhere even the future can’t find us.” I smile sadly. “The willow tree?” “The willow tree.”

“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.”

You are my inevitable. The kiss deepens, and with it, a plea with each press of my mouth. I love you. I tell him in the sigh he draws from my lips. In every slow caress across his skin. In every pounding beat of the heart that belongs to him. I love you. He smells of pine and spice and long nights under the willow. I love you. He tastes like a secret I wish to scream, a word on the tip of my tongue that will never be mine to utter. So I say his name instead, as if I could claim him so easily. As if I’m not thinking of three damning words when I say it. I love you.

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

Tears prick my eyes. “… you found my shoes for me.” He says he loves me. Again and again.

“Said he would sit in that chair until he was sure you were asleep.” I swallow. “And did he?” “Yes.” Her voice is quiet. “And long after.”

“My pretty Pae, would you like to dance?” Her smile seems to brighten the darkness. “I would never pass up the chance to stomp on your toes, Malakai.”

My favorite color is a shade of her, a sliver of the vibrance she exudes. And I will gladly drown, gladly burn, gladly fall into those blue eyes until the day she looks at me for the last time.

“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.”

“It’s just you and me. Under the willow.”

But I whisper it now, over and over. “I love you, Kai. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“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.”

“My pretty Pae. Look what you have done to me.”

“See you in the sky.”

“Take care of her for me,” she whispers atop his pale skin. “Take care of her, Mak.” I almost don’t hear her final, broken whisper. “See you in the sky.”

Im crying

But they are together now, decorating the sky. That is what he wanted, I’m beginning to realize. He only wished to see her in the sky.

I am forever her rival, and I revel in it.

We are inevitable. We are tragedy.

His lips form a murmured promise. “No part of you will go unloved.”

YESS

“You are my forever.” Shadow and Flame. Formidably inevitable. “Forever my undoing.”

“Love each other for me.”

CRYING

I need you to make me whole again. You, Kai.

STOP😭

“We will love for him,” she whispers in my ear. A tear slips down my cheek. “You and me.”

🥹