Our Violent Ends (These Violent Delights #2)

by Chloe Gong

She had not seen his physical person, but she had felt his presence everywhere: in the corpses littered across the city with lily-white flowers clutched in their stiff hands; in the business partners disappearing out of the blue with nary a message or explanation; in the blood feud making its mark.

Juliette was not frightened. If anything, she was only resentful—not at Roma, but at herself. At wanting to lean in even while Roma was actively trying to kill her. At this distance between them that she had willingly manufactured, because they had been born into two families at war, and she would rather die at Roma’s hand than be the cause of his death.

His safety was an abstract concept when he was at a distance, far from the threats that her Scarlets posed to him. But here, with his pulse thudding through his chest and beating an even rhythm onto hers, he was just a boy, just a bloody, beating heart that could be cut out at any moment by any blade sharp enough.

They would rule this city one day, wouldn’t they? One half each, fists over empires.

“These violent delights have violent ends,” Juliette whispered to herself. She tilted her head up to the clouds, to the light sea breeze blowing in from the Bund and stinging her nose with salt. “You have always known this.”

If it was supposed to be a coping mechanism, then Benedikt supposed he had never been much good at taking advantage of coping mechanisms anyway. He only knew how to swallow, and swallow, and swallow, until a black hole had grown in his stomach to suck everything away. Until it was all pushed somewhere else, and then he could forget that he never knew what to do with himself in the daylight hours anymore.

Watch the carnage. Watch the destruction. Feel the slick of the blood as it paints the carpeting red, and remember what is at stake in this city, all because some foreign merchant wants to play greedy.

And what was love if all it did was kill?

“This city would have destroyed you for that.” “It has destroyed me anyway,” Benedikt replied.

Because I cannot bear to see you hurt, even when I am the one hurting you the most.

It was not hard to put together what they were to each other. Lovers. Liars.

Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.

She would live with this forever, live with her cousin’s blood on her hands, and in the dark of night when no one could hear her, she would cry her tears and mourn the boy he could have been. She would mourn the other Scarlets just as she mourned the White Flowers she had destroyed in the blood feud, and even more so, because their loyalty should have been their protection, and yet Juliette had turned on them. She didn’t regret it. She hated it, and she hated herself. But standing there, in front of her, was the reason for everything she had done, and to look upon him alive and well was enough to push back the loathing she had for the blood on her hands, for the city that had made her into this monster of a person.

“This kindness is disconcerting,” she managed. “Whatever turmoil exists in my heart, I deserve it.”

In the end, this was all that they were. Two hearts pressed as close as they dared, shadows melding into one by the flickering candlelight.

“No,” Roma finally said. “Then we would not have met. Then I would have lived an ordinary life, pining for some great love I would never find, because ordinary things happen to ordinary people, and ordinary people settle for something that satisfies them, never knowing if there would have been greater happiness in another life.” His voice was rough, but it was certain. “I will fight this war to love you, Juliette Cai. I will fight this feud to have you, because it was this feud that gave you to me, twisted as it is, and now I will take you away from it.”

It was hard to voice the extent of their penance, hard to put into words exactly how much they needed to apologize for the bloodshed between them. Instead, they begged for a lifetime of pardon from each other through touch, through tender caresses and pounding hearts raging in tandem.

That was not the present; that was not this moment, this heartbeat of time locked in by heady breaths and gentle worship. It was distant to Juliette, and she would let it remain at a distance, so long as she could have this—here, now, perfect: her soul as boundless as the sea, her love as deep.

“If there is a life after this, one that is free of the blood feud, I hope we can be friends.”

In this life and the next, for however long our souls remain, mine will always find yours.