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

by Sarah A. Parker

He’d drift into the room and I’d fall into his gravity. He’d glance in my direction and every cell would feel pinched by his perusal.

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

A tear slides down her cheek, drips off the edge of her jaw. I trace its trail … Can she feel it? Does it cut like a blade? Caress like the breeze? Does she feel haunted, like she’s haunting me?

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

I want him to hurt. To bleed. I want him to snap, just like he snapped me. He’s the ailment, yes ... but also the remedy I wasn’t expecting.

“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.”

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.

“But that didn’t stop him.” It would never stop him. “Because he was hers—forever—even though he knew his love was lethal.” He was hers.

“You’re going to go to war with him? Over me?” He doesn’t blink or flinch. “I’d strike the fucking world down for you.”

“You really are a monster,” I rasp, like I just swallowed a thorny seed that’s stuck in my throat. Choking me. He rakes my face with his glacial gaze, settling on the thorned tips of my ears. “Your monster,” he whispers, and I draw a staggered breath.