To Snap a Silver Stem (Crystal Bloom, #2)

by Sarah A. Parker

“Her hate is the only thing I’ll accept.

Truth is, I fell in love with a ghost. Now I’m gone and still ... haunted.

“I saw your want to be treasured in the tears you cried,” he continues, pushing closer. “Felt it in the way you kissed me.” It was all a lie.

She doesn’t think I care. It’s almost enough to bring me to my knees. I did that to her. I fucking did that to her.

Little does she know, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Except let her go.

“I won’t determine your steps, Milaje. I’ll even let you trip. But I refuse to let you fall.”

“There is nowhere you can hide. Nowhere you can go. Even if this were to stop beating,” he says, threading his hand over my rioting heart, “I’d follow.”

I’d rather eat my own liver than send my curiosity marching to his slaughterhouse.

Promising yourself to another shouldn’t mean you lose yourself in the process.

Today’s small dose of it might cost me my life. But I’d rather die by the sword of my own decisions than be stripped of the ability to make them.

“You’d think losing my entire family was the worst thing to happen to me, but it’s not. It’s you,”

What I regret is letting her believe she doesn’t hold my cold, crippled heart in the palm of her hand. Because she does. She always will.