Chapter 20 #2
"I'm... stronger than I realized," she said, and the way her worried expression softened into a hopeful smile nearly shattered me. "I wish you had told me how you grew up, so I could be prepared."
"So you would know how much you wanted to ask for?" I said, a bitter laugh in my throat, unable to keep the worst of my assumptions in. "You wished you knew how high you could name your price."
She crossed the room, the liquid silver of her gown trailing behind her like moonlight spilling across the floor. Every movement pulled at me, like gravity, like fate, as she stopped in front of me, her eyes blazing.
"I wish you had told me so that we could have run straight from the wedding to the spaceport rather than going to get rings," she hissed under her breath at me.
"If you think for one second that I would ever allow our children to be controlled and used like this, you have no idea what kind of woman I am. "
I stared at her in shock, my bitter feelings washing away with the shock of the words I desperately needed to hear.
She glared back at me, her tone low. "There is a car waiting for us. We can't rush to get to it, so we don't look like we're running, but once we go, we need to go. If you want to get away from these people, we have to get off this planet tonight. We can't hesitate."
I dragged my claws through the thick locks of my hair that even now reached for her.
They were always reaching for her, always wanting to hold her, to envelop her.
The storm of emotions tangled in my chest. I wanted to find the right words, ones that would help us navigate this moment, get us through to the other side, where I could hold her, claim her again, without doubt shadowing the space between us.
"I'm sorry," I said at last, the two words magnifying the depth of how I had misjudged her, an apology for the thoughts unspoken that she didn’t deserve.
"You don't have to be sorry," she replied. "You just have to tell me you don't want to stay here. Tell me that you'll come with me."
She reached for me, and when her fingers curled around mine, the touch of her soft skin against my palm sent electric awareness racing up my arms. My claws twitched with restraint.
"Run away with me, and we’ll get through this together," she said.
We’ll get through this together.
That was all I needed.
Those words slipped past the barriers I’d been building since the moment her teeth sank into that steak. They pierced straight into my heart and tore the wall down brick by brick.
"You didn’t have to eat the meat," I told her, my voice low. But even as I said it, I knew the truth: nothing I could have done would’ve had the same impact as what she chose to do.
If I’d eaten the steak, it might have earned me leverage.
Power. Enough to keep her safe, to send her home even as I struggled with feeding the addiction rather than freeing myself from it.
But her eating it? That changed everything.
That gave her options. It cracked something open in my parents that I couldn’t have touched on my own.
"The reason I chained myself in my room is that once you start eating meat in enough quantity, stopping it causes madness. "
She looked down at where our hands were still joined, her fingers curled around mine.
"I won’t eat any more," she said softly, eyes still lowered. "Though you should know that my species doesn’t... have problems... if we eat meat and then stop. At least... I don’t think we do.
Our meat doesn’t come from sentient creatures.
Or, at least, I don’t think they’re sentient.
I wasn’t sure before, but..." She hesitated, her voice growing smaller as a pale look crossed her face.
"I couldn't be sure, but Eun, tell me, what I ate tonight, did that used to be a person?
I really hope it wasn't. But Eun, I couldn't let you eat it.
Not when they were forcing you like that. "
Her words hit me like a slap.
She didn't know for certain what she was eating, but she knew what it would have done to me to touch that plate after finally getting clean.
And she chose to bear it instead.
"You did that for me," I whispered. I released her hand, slipping my arm around her waist and drawing her against my chest. My other hand lifted to her chin, tilting her face up until her eyes met mine.
"You ate that to save me from it."
"Yes," she said, her breath trembling across her lips. Her tongue darted out to wet them, and I nearly lost my breath.
"You didn’t have to," I murmured. "I would have done it. I would’ve played their game. Followed their rules. If that’s what it took to keep you safe, I would have."
"I know," she said, eyes locked with mine. "I know you would have."
"Then why?" I asked, heart pounding like a drum in my ears.
She hesitated.
"Tell me," I ordered, voice quiet but unyielding.
"It's because I love you," she said.
The words struck like lightning, caged within the fragile box of my chest, ricocheting off ribs and bone and breath until my entire body felt like it was burning from the inside out. But she didn’t stop to let me absorb them. She pressed forward, raw and real.
"It’s because I wanted to do something for you. Because I needed to do something for me. To take care of myself for once."
She faltered, as if she hadn’t wanted to say that last part.
"Tell me every part of it," I whispered, leaning in. She bent back under my approach, her spine curving, lips tilted toward mine, eyes wide and shining.
There was one more truth I needed. One last piece that would confirm the storm I saw inside her during dinner was no illusion.
"I was hungry," she said.
She tried to look away, but I caught her chin, holding her still, forcing her to stay in the moment with me. No escape. Not from this.
I could smell it on her, grease and fat and the wild, unspoken truth of what she’d done. It clung to her mouth like perfume, twined with her natural scent, richer now. Earthier.
"You were hungry," I echoed, voice low.
"My body needed it. It was delicious," she breathed, the word trembling in the air between us as if even she couldn’t believe she’d said it. Her whole body tensed under my touch, as if she might bolt.
"Delicious," I murmured.
I brushed my lips over hers, not kissing her, not yet...just feeling her. Savoring the closeness. Then I dragged my tongue across the corner of her mouth.
The taste of her, mingled with that lingering hint of seared meat, made me shudder. Not from revulsion.
From need.
She dug her fingers into my hair, her soft, rounded nails sinking behind my ears as she rose onto her toes, closing the final breath of space between us. Her greased lips met mine, slick and warm, and I groaned as my tongue slid between them, tasting her.
Tasting it.
The flavor of suffering, rich and forbidden, lingered beneath the sweetness of her kiss.
It was horror and hunger, death and desire, the exquisite rot of everything I had tried to purge from myself.
But it was tangled with her now, tangled with the scent of her skin, the press of her soft curves against my harder edges, the way she seemed to mold to me like she had always belonged in my arms.
She tasted like everything I feared… and everything I had ever wanted.
I gathered her to me, lifting her easily, the silk of her gown fluttering around us like liquid moonlight as I carried her across the room.
I laid her gently on the bed, her fingers still clutching at my shoulders, her eyes never leaving mine.
I knelt over her, bracketing her in with my body, my knees to either side of her legs, my hands planted by her shoulders.
She was beneath me, utterly within my reach, yet I felt breathless, like one wrong move would shatter this fragile, perfect moment.
"Stay with me," I whispered, the words ripped from somewhere deep and raw inside me. I hadn’t meant to say it. I hadn't meant to need her this much. But the thought of her leaving, of walking away from me, of stepping back into danger, into distance, was unbearable.
I’d lived numb for so long, drifting forward with the blind hope that I could do good without ever tasting power. Without getting blood on my hands. But she had bloodied herself for me already.
My mother was right and wrong.
She wasn’t perfect for the family. She was perfect for me.
She filled the hollow in my chest where regret used to live. She stepped into the spaces I didn’t know needed filling and made them whole.
I thought I had saved her.
But she had saved me.
"Run away with me," she said, voice steady, soft. "Fuck staying."
I laughed. It burst from my chest, bright and disbelieving, the only sound that could carry the storm of emotion she’d summoned with those four perfect words.
"We don’t have to stay away forever," she added, brushing a hand against my cheek.
“Help me get back to my home. Get away from all of this, just for a little while. Make your choices based on what you want, not just what they want. If you want to keep them as your family, you have to show them that you are willing to walk away from them and never look back.”
And there it was again, that gentle strength.
She wasn’t asking me to give everything up.
She was asking me to choose.
Her. Myself. Us.
She reached up with those soft hands and slid them down my chest, sending a shudder through me as she found the edge of my trousers.
She slid them down, and I let out a gasp as she found me, stiff and erect, her touch igniting the fire from the coals that smoldered whenever I was in her presence.
Then she was wiggling, sliding down the bed, and I sat up on my knees.
I couldn't move away; she had me tight in her grip.