37. Rylan
37
RYLAN
S he loves me.
She has always loved me.
But she’s lied to me.
The words sit like a dagger lodged between my ribs, a wound too deep to pull free, too painful to ignore.
I should have seen it.
The way she never truly feared me, even when she should have.
Even when I wanted her to.
And now—now that the words have left her lips, I cannot put them back.
I should say something.
I should tell her that love is a useless, wretched thing, a chain that binds and weakens, an illusion that fools even the strongest.
I should laugh in her face and remind her who I am.
What I am.
I am not a man meant for love.
Yet I have never wanted anything more than I want her.
She lays beside me, her body still tangled with mine, her breath warm against my skin.
She watches me, waiting.
Not for an answer.
But for a reaction.
She knows what this means.
She knows what she has just done to me.
I force myself to sit up, to put space between us before I lose myself completely.
If I stay here—if I let her pull me further into this madness?—
I won’t come back from it.
Her voice is soft, careful.
"Say something."
I inhale sharply.
I don’t want to say anything.
Because the wrong words will destroy this.
And the right words will destroy me.
I glance at her, my fingers curling into the sheets.
“You shouldn’t have told me that.”
She blinks.
Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak.
I exhale, pushing to my feet, shoving my hands through my hair as if I can tear the feeling of her away from me.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done.” My voice is low, raw.
She sits up slowly, the sheets slipping from her bare skin, exposing the marks I left in the heat of the night.
I shouldn’t look.
I shouldn’t want.
But I do.
Gods help me, I do.
Her sapphire eyes search mine, so steady, so open, so damn certain. It infuriates me.
Not her confession or the love she protests.
But the fact that she meant it.
That she isn’t afraid of what it means.
That she isn’t afraid of me.
I move almost instinctively.
I grab her chin, tilting her face up to mine, forcing her to see the war inside me.
"You think love is a gift," I whisper. "You think it will keep you safe."
Her lips part, her breath catching at my touch.
I lean in closer to feel the heat of her skin.
"But love is a curse, Seraphina," I murmur, voice sharp as steel. "It makes men weak. It makes them blind. It makes them bleed."
Her lashes flutter, but she doesn’t look away.
She should.
She should.
Instead, she reaches up, her fingers brushing against my jaw.
"And what does it make you?" she whispers.
My chest tightens.
I don’t know.
That’s the problem.
I have lived my life without love.
Without need. Without devotion. Without this.
I have built walls so high, so unyielding, that I thought nothing could breach them.
But she has.
And now I can’t close the wound.
I let her go.
I turn away before I do something foolish.
Like keep touching her.
Like pull her against me and pretend this doesn’t terrify me.
Like admit that she is already inside me, beneath my skin, burning through me like something unstoppable.
I force distance between us.
I reach for my clothes, for the armor I should have never let fall away in the first place.
I need it now.
I need something to stop this feeling from consuming me whole.
She watches in silence.
She doesn’t stop me.
She doesn’t beg.
And gods, I wish she would.
It would be easier if she fought.
If she gave me an excuse to push her away.
But she doesn’t.
She just waits.
She knows.
She knows I am already hers.
Even if I will never say it.
Even if I try to fight it.
Even if I already know I’ve lost.
I grab my dagger, spinning it between my fingers, the weight of steel grounding me.
"We leave soon," I say, my voice cool, distant.
She nods, but doesn’t move from the bed.
Doesn’t cover herself.
Just watches me.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
And I realize, with a sick twist of dread, that I will never be free of her.
I don’t want to be.
But I cannot let her see that.
If she does?—
She will own me. And I can’t afford to be owned.
Even for her.