A Vow of Hate (A Vow of Hate, #1)

by Lylah James

“Listen to me very carefully. You will marry me; you will pay for your sins and you will die at my hands.”

“I will break you, Julianna Romano.” You can’t break what’s already broken.

This marriage was his vengeance – the vows would not be of love, but of hatred. His retaliation. My atonement. One imperfect marriage.

“I vow to spend the rest of my life making you regret what you did to Gracelynn.” “… To love her, to honor her, to comfort her, to cherish her…” “To hurt you, to break you… and to hate you for the rest of our days. I will never be your protector, never your defender; I vow to be the villain in your story.” “… And to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?” “In health and in sickness, through sorrow and pain, for all the days in my life, I will be your worst nightmare.”

Her grey eyes, like the smoke after the fire, after the burn... like the fucking ashes we were laying in. They got darker and greyer when she was angry.

“There’s a fine line between love and hate, Killian,” Julianna muttered, her voice soft and broken. “Not for us,” I said. “Not for us,” she agreed.

“I came into your life, bringing tragedy with me,” I whispered. “Love can kill while still keeping you alive to feel it. How deadly it is, how painful, how cruel.”

“If I could go back to change the past… I would have never willing inserted myself into your life, if I knew our story would be filled with such venom. Our beginning was stained and our future is broken.”

Because my truth was that… I fell in love with Killian Spencer when I was seventeen years old. But I only ended up killing his heart.

“You were in that car with her, I get it. You watched your sister die, I get it. It was traumatic for you, I get it. You suffered physically and mentally, and you’re guilt-ridden, I. Fucking. Get. It. But that doesn’t give you the right to play with me and my feelings, to deceive me or to make me mourn the woman I loved when she wasn’t even dead!” His palm slapped over the wall beside my head and I flinched, hiccupping back a sob.

“I plummeted into chaos because your love was everything beautiful and pure, but my love was everything deceitful and destructive. So, I didn’t just fall in love with you, Killian. I crawled, on my knees, bleeding for you. So, it was real. Every moment, every smile, every kiss… it was real and it hurt.”

“There’s a fine line between love and hate. And I just realized that I love you as much as I fucking hate you, Julianna.”