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She’s all the things I lost in myself.
I hate that I can’t comfort her. I hate that she doesn’t braid her hair anymore. I hate that I did this. It’s my fault.
Sometimes I wonder if her mind is trying to coax her, telling her that she needs to come back to me. One can only hope. I don’t know why else she’d find it in herself to try so hard to get to know me. It’s becoming impossible to ignore. I crave to give into my longing for her.
Of course, a monster like me would find solace in another familiar. We’re broken things. Broken, dangerous weapons.
“I know everyone calls me that. It’s because to them I’m a monster. A thing that doesn’t have a name. Only a definition. Faceless. Death.”
“You don’t remember me,” he murmurs. “But I can never forget you.”
“Come here, take me in your mouth so I can fuck all your questions away.”
All I see is her as she struts right up to me, dirt on her mask already, fire burning the world behind her, and absolute mania behind those lovely eyes.
“You’d be doing me a favor, love,” I say gently as I brush my thumb over her chapped lips. The energy flees my flesh and my arm drops back down to my side. Darkness clouds my sight once more. Please kill me, Emery.
“I never stopped caring about you, Em. I just wanted you to be safe from me.”
“I don’t know what hurt worse: watching you fall in love with me even though I tried to keep you away, or not being able to pull you against my chest every single night and hold you… Just holding you would’ve been enough for me.”
“There could be endless versions of you, and I’d love each one as fervently and entirely.”
“I love you. I love every wrong thing you’ve done, every right. We are far from perfect, Cam. Even though I’m still mad at you, I never want to take another breath without you near,”
“I will always choose you, Em. Over anything. I want to prove that to you. No matter what becomes of me and the monster they made me, I’ll only obey you.”
I’m nothing without her. She’s every part of me I once lost. Every flower in my field of death.
“I know, baby, I’m so sorry. This is my fault. Please, don’t cry,” I murmur in an attempt to soothe her. “I want to hold you so badly. I’m sorry I can’t wrap you in my arms and keep you safe. But do you hear that? Fury is coming, they’re going to extract us. We just need to hold out a little bit longer.”
I am only a wicked man filled with demons, but she makes me feel like the sea on a stormless night—calm and clear.
Sometimes I think Cameron’s the only good thing left in this dark world, even if the things he’s done have setbacks.
Those sage eyes look different than they had when we met—they’re filled with longing and sadness that collects in my soul.
“They took my hair because they knew I loved it, but I couldn’t shed a single tear over something as fickle as hair when what I truly loved was you. They can take everything from me as long as it isn’t you,”
“You’re not allowed to love someone as monstrous as me, Em. Not after everything I’ve done,”
“Fuck, I want to be inside you so bad, Em.” He presses heady kisses to my forehead and cheeks before placing a soft one on my lips. “But your body is hurting, even if you don’t feel it anymore. Why don’t I just eat you out until you’re coming on my face? I don’t want to hurt you further,”
“Oh, I love when my little soldier is so fucking wet for me,”
“That’s it. Cry for me, Em. I want you to remember how I worship you and fuck you until you’re begging for my come inside your sweet pussy.”
“You’ve just forgotten the shape of me inside you.” He kisses me and sucks on my bottom lip before pulling a breath away. “But you will remember it. I’ll make sure of it.”
This is the most intimate he’s ever been. The euphoric sensation of two damaged-beyond-repair people coming together is beautiful in its own sense. I wish I knew if he’s made peace with his reluctance to let others get close to him. To care about him. It melts my heart that he’s allowing himself to have this soft, endearing moment with me.
“I’d pursue you to no end. You are the only home I’ve ever truly known,”
“And I’d fall in love with you over and over, should I forget. I would always find solace in your eyes. Love inside your heart.” Cameron’s eyes are hooded, brows arched in a way that betrays his grief-ridden soul. He’s traveled for boundless years, searching for a warm place to rest for as long as I have. Two different soldiers, two torturous stories, one ending.
We remain connected as we take each other in, wondering where we will ever be able to root our love in a place as ruthless and unforgiving as the Dark Forces.
“The first time my heart stopped was when Nolan dragged you into my cell. The second was when I let that rock hit your skull.”
“Don’t tease what you cannot tame, love,”
“You don’t think I can tame a feral thing like you?”
Only she could take my mind from all the fucked-up shit in my life. Only she could make this smile hurt the way it does. I’ve never laughed the way I do with her. Never breathed as peacefully.
She parts her lips to say more, but I close the distance between us. Our hearts connect as our lips meet. “Thank you for saving me,”
“Em, I want to bite every inch of your body until there’s nowhere that isn’t bruised with my teeth. I want to sit you on my dick and fuck you senseless until you’re crying for my seed deep inside you. I want you to come so hard on my dick that I can feel your convulsions and make sure that you know no one will ever make you feel the way I do.” I pull her chest closer against mine and hood my eyes as I gaze into her soul. “I want you, forever.”
“The only thing God ever did for me was give me a big dick,”
Why was love withheld from me for my entire life until you? I want to say. It hurts that I’d not known how to accept affection. It hurts to know that I pushed this away for so long, because of my fucked-up childhood.
“I guess you make me sane then, and somehow I find that a terrible mindset to be in.”
“Then I’ll have to teach you what happens to bad girls who like to take risks. I’ll show you again and again until you’re submissive to me.”
“Oh, baby, if you’re well-behaved then I’ll show you what a goddess-worshipping man like me will do to you.”
me. “You are my end. I’ll follow you to the depths of hell if I have to.”
“My poetic soldier. So out of place, yet you’ve never belonged anywhere else…except, perhaps, in my arms.” I
“I’d take your blade a thousand times, Em. If it means you get to be here with me.”
“Even if our lives are shorter, I’m going to live every single one of them with you, Em. I love you. I yearn for you even in my dreams.”
“I fucking love you,” I say as I rise to my feet and meet her. God I wish I could kiss her right now, but I bonk my helmet to hers and she giggles before pulling the knife out of the poor guy’s ass, and we both slash his throat from either side, effectively decapitating him in one fell swoop.
Blood fills his scarred eye, taking me back to the trials, reminding me that no matter how much we don’t feel, we’re only human. We’re only lovely monsters made of flesh and bone.
My eyes trace her features one last time. She’s the only light that found me in life. She chased away all my shadows.
“I loved you completely. In a way we never got to fully explore together. You were the sunlight over a frozen lake. The whisper of happiness I got to know. I love you, Em… I love you. Now, look away,”
“We don’t have time to hash out whether or not we’re fucked-up murderers. We’re all guilty of that, are we not?”
“Your love could change even the darkest of hearts.

