The Sinner

by Emma Scott

“Grief isn’t weakness,” I said quietly. “It’s a sign of love. It’s love that endures—” “And what of the love that is murdered before your eyes?” he demanded with sudden fire. “What is love when it screams your name on bloodstained lips, calling for help that you cannot give? Tell me that isn’t weakness, Lucy Dennings. The ultimate weakness. To be unable to save them. I couldn’t save them…” He shook his head with finality, his voice hard again. “Grief is not love. Grief is penance for living after love has died.”

Dam-gá. Ttsuma. Zhena. The most beautiful word in any language because it describes her. She was mine for a handful of moments in the brief candle-flicker lives of humans.

“Did you wait for me, Li’ili?” “I would wait for you until the sun goes black and the stars fall, beloved.”

Stop erasing her damn memory. Stop erasing you from her mind, because no matter how hard you try, you can’t purge yourself from her heart.”

“What I feel for you is real, Casziel, and the only thing that scares me is losing you again.” “Lucy…” “I don’t need rescuing. I need you.”

“I’ve loved you for a hundred lifetimes, Lucy. If it could’ve saved me, it would’ve done so by now.”

This was real. He was real and not a dream. This wasn’t someone else’s story but ours. His and mine.

I was given everything I’d longed to feel for years. Lifetimes. I became the heroine in every romance novel I’d ever read. Passages that thrilled me, or brought tears to my eyes, or made my heart pound or my stomach flutter. Every first heated glance. Every first kiss. Every first touch. Every longing to be protected, safe…owned. Every need to be desired, cherished, and wanted with fierce animal lust…I felt it all, all at once.

I’ll love you forever. I have loved you forever, through every century, with every lifetime that’s passed and every lifetime to come. There is only you. There will only ever be you. My love. My life.”