Fearless (The Powerless Trilogy, #3)

by Lauren Roberts

“Every brutal act is born of love.”

A criminal without a father, and a son forever trying to please his. Just as we were, and just as we always will be.

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 thought I’d known torment until it wrapped around her finger. No, torment is tangible, and it gleams atop her tanned skin.

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.

I watch Paedyn through the gaps of a gawking crowd, just as I will for the rest of my life. I’ll be forced to spend my days at her service but never at her side. In her shadow but never truly seen. 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.

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.

Because she was meant to be the death of me, not the life of another. It was her I was meant to adore in this world and crawl to in the one after. But now she’s tethered to a king, and I am nothing more than her killer.

Because if she truly becomes Kitt’s, I will spend the rest of my life mourning her.

“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.”

His brother, on the other hand… I know exactly what it feels like to be claimed by the Enforcer. And I’ve embraced it.

The mere presence of her is familiar, branded into the hollow of my neck where her head rests, tethered to my ankle and forever tugging me toward her.

My heart bangs against my chest, beating for her, beating for every moment we may never get to spend together.

I want to remember her like this. See her in the stitching of a dress or in the rays of the sun. Watch her shine through every second for as long as I remain breathing the air she no longer can.

“Pae.” His voice calms the sea of panic beginning to swell in my chest.

“Darling, I’d be in this bed beside you if my brother hadn’t slipped a ring onto your finger.” 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.

“Then we’ll make the most of it. I will be your Enforcer. Your rival. Your secret waiting beneath the willow.”

I want nothing more than to be held by him, enveloped in the comfort of his arms. He is a weakness I am not supposed to indulge in. Not in this life, at least.

I see a friendship, not love. No, love is what I see when I look at his brother.

It’s as though she is whole again in my arms, reunited with the ghost of her father and held in the arms of her Enforcer. 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.

It is cruel, not being able to call him mine after everything we’ve endured. Perhaps in another life, I am strong enough to never need proof of it. Perhaps in another life, I am brave enough to confess that I love him. Perhaps in another life, I learn to love him from afar. And that is the most fearless thing of them all.

As if I’ve found the eye of the storm within him, and he in me.

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’m selfish, Paedyn. I burned your home to the ground just to have you and now it is all of Ilya standing in my way, tempting me to light a match.”

Her face in my hands, my heart in hers.

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.

My entire body is numb—mind, soul, and shattered heart. I am utterly hollow without his love to fill me.

“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.”

I’ve never seen something so beautiful, so bold, so blatantly right for me, for this kingdom, this hope of a united Ilya. And I fear I may forever be in awe of her. Looking at Paedyn Gray, I see a reckless sort of fearlessness, a power that swells from her vibrant soul.

He has always been a prince, always a puppet for power or instrument of Death. But just as constant and formidably fierce, he has been my home. In my search for comfort, it is him I crawl back to. Peace is the place he resides, and passion is a word I only understand when I look into his eyes. He is the freedom I cannot grasp. We are inevitable. We are tragedy.

It was the gentleness with which he loved, even when he grieved, that made me break. We held each other, weeping for a brother, a broken boy, a loss to the world.

I love you, Paedyn Gray. And I will happily spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you.”

She is what my scarred heart beats for.