He breathed in her sparkling scent, tasting the crackle of fear, and brushed his jaw against her feather-soft cheek, then whispered the truth into her ear. His name. A name he’d dared not speak in ten years. It was freeing really, to speak the truth he’d so long clung to, keeping it chained inside himself. “No…” she gasped, and the last bright spark of hope faded from her eyes. He let her look into his eyes, really look, and finally, she saw him beneath the lies. And she understood it all. “I will be the end of all of you.”
