Chapter 32 #2
“I wish my brother sent you here to steal me away, so we could live happily ever after. Everett was selfless. His interests didn’t bend so true love could bloom.
We are trapped like dead bones long buried in the sands of time.
Layers and layers of Everett’s decisions continue to bear down upon us, like slabs of this forsaken land, shoving and trapping us deeper and deeper.
We’re nothing but creatures meant to play a specific role, so the future can evolve.
Maybe one day someone will find our bones, uncover our story, and retell it. ”
Titus and I are cornerstones; we hold up everything.
If we remove ourselves and run away, then everything around us will crumble.
“A love like ours is worth fighting for,” he confesses. He’s never backing down. Titus is the type of man who runs into battle, chin high, sword outstretched, feet proud, spine stiff, ready to rebuke the impact; he fears not death but life without purpose.
I press my fingers over his mouth. “In my world, love is an hourglass. Eventually, the sand will hit the bottom.”
“Hourglasses can be turned back over. It can start again.” He takes my hand and presses his lips to my palm. My thighs clench as my body purrs. The mating mark will appear in a matter of days or hours. It should be a thing of beauty, like a child. Something you protect and stand in awe of.
But this is life, and the world corrupts children; it takes something beautiful and precious and molds it into a shell of cruelty, a vessel into which it pours more ugly lies.
A mating mark would be a sure sign of Titus’s death.
“This will all end.” Titus’s smile grows like the petals of a flower growing in a thunderstorm.
Does he know hail is about to batter him?
He continues, “I have so many answers to tell you. One day, I will turn our hourglass over, and we will start a new one. We will be free to love each other.” He pulls me closer and then forces my chin up. “Let me kiss you.”
My eyes drop to his lips. How badly I long to taste them, to have them touch my skin, kissing away all the invisible scars no one sees.
I shake my head. “How will we hide the mate mark?” They appear over each other’s hearts. “I am married.”
“You are not married. You are chained to a man who cheats and seeks to kill everything you love. Our bond is the key that unlocks you. Once the people see the mark, you’ll be free of Galen. The laws permit it.”
“You know he is a king who yields to no laws.” I feel the blood drain from my cheeks as realization settles into my core. “It makes sense. Everett said you should be king, and now I know what he meant. He intended for you to kill Galen.”
How do we kill a king and then unite the people so they trust us? How do we bring runes back into this world and have the strength to keep them safe from my twin?
How?
“I’ll do what I must protect my mate. Hey,” His hand slips behind my neck as he guides my face closer.
“Right now, you’re looking at a field that is covered in weeds.
It’s hard to envision where a garden will grow; we have to take it one patch at a time.
One problem at a time. Tristen is correct.
We will sort everything out, and then lastly we will tackle this bond and Galen.
Because I know what a mate bond means.” He grins widely as he runs his nose along my jaw.
“It means I have forever with you, so if I have to wait to kiss you, to make love to you, that’s okay because, in the end, I will have you. Forever.”
His lips brush over mine like a whisper.
“You make it sound so easy. You make victory certain,” I breathe into him.
“It’s not easy. I need you to know how hard it will be for me.
Asking me not to kiss you is like telling a drowning man who sees shore not to kick and swim.
It’s forcing me to suffer, a burning cold suffocating death that fills my lungs; begging me to allow the water to replace the feelings I have for you.
” He shakes his head. “As if water could wash away what I feel.”
He moves. Our first kiss burns into my cheek. I want to turn my face. I want his lips on mine, where they belong, not on the side, disguised as a friendship.
“Sometimes life is more peaceful under the surface, Titus. At least you can survive.”
He presses our foreheads together. “Survive? You think denying what my heart wants is surviving? You think watching you shine in the light as I am trapped under the currents of our problems is surviving?”
He glides his fingers down my neck, finding my pulse point so he can cradle it.
“Don’t you understand? I can’t survive because I haven’t begun living yet.
Now that I have found you, everything is altered.
Everything I thought I loved has shifted; everything that brought me joy is empty.
Absolutely nothing compares to you, Selene.
When I can openly admit you are my mate, that is the day I am born, and then I will fight to survive. ”
He leans close, teasing my lips as he presses his over mine again. “When I kiss you,” his nostrils flare as he pulls away, “you will no longer be Galen’s queen. You will be mine.”