“No, Zael. You’re wrong.” She combed her fingers through his hair as he stared out at the horizon, her eyes tender on the tormented, beautiful face of the man she had somehow come to care for so deeply. “That’s not what I see in you at all. It’s not what I saw here at the colony today. It’s not what I saw in you with the Order.” She put her fingers beneath his chin to bring his troubled gaze to hers. “It’s not what I see when you’re with me.”
He cupped her face in his palm, his thumb lightly stroking her lips. “After Sharon, I never allowed myself to feel that deeply again. I didn’t let myself feel love because I never wanted to feel pain or loss. But with you… Everything changed when I saw you, Brynne.”
She wanted to believe him, but there was a part of her that was still afraid. Still certain the day would come when he rejected what she really was inside—or when he would regret that he hadn’t rejected her.
“I’ve been alone all my life, Zael. It’s where I feel safe.” She turned her face into the cradle of his palm. “But you were right when you said I was lonely. I never realized how empty my life was. I didn’t realize it could be any different. But now…”
“Now, what?”
She took a breath, needing to say the words before she let herself fall any deeper. “I’m afraid that I’ll wake up one day and my life will be empty again. I’m afraid of what I am—what Dragos made me—and I’m afraid of what I may still become.”
“None of that scares me.” Zael’s touch was tender as he reached out to trace the faint pattern of a glyph that was awakening on her chest. When he glanced to her eyes, his gaze was resolute. “We’ll get through it together. My light helped you through the worst of it once; it can do it again.”
She laughed sadly. “For how long, Zael?”
“As long as you want me.”
“What if that’s forever?”
The question fell from her lips before she could stop it.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she closed her eyes, praying the beach beneath her would open up and drag her down.
But then Zael’s lips were brushing against hers. She melted into him on a moan, her fangs tingling in her gums. His tongue teased the seam of her mouth, then slipped inside on her hushed sigh.
He moved over her, pressing her down onto the sand as his hungered kiss devoured all of her doubts and fears.
CHAPTER 31
He didn’t want to let go of her.
She felt too good, her soft body moving beneath him on the sand, holding him close as their mouths joined in a desperate tangling of lips and tongues and panting, fevered breaths. Although this stretch of the beach was secluded, kissing her like this was going to get out of hand quickly.
Hell, who was he kidding?
What he shared with Brynne had been out of his control from the start. He meant it when he said it didn’t matter that she was Breed or something darker. He craved her, cared for her. Felt more deeply for her than he ever had for another person in his life.
Holy fuck.
As the understanding settled on him, he drew back on a low growl and stared down into her beautiful, transformed face.
He was in love with her.
He wasn’t going to deny it anymore. Not to himself, at least. He couldn’t. Not the way his chest throbbed simply to be near her, to be touching her. To know that she was his.
After how she had looked at him here today—after all of the tender things she’d said—there was a part of him that believed she might love him too.
Forever, she’d said.
His heart had answered without hesitation.
Yes. Forever.