Page 113 of Viper

His brow creased. “I did wonder if maybe I seemed familiar to you. If your soul did manage to retain some memories, being around me would have triggered them to surface. They would have come to you as you slept. You didn’t remember them on waking?”

“Only brief flashes here and there. Nothing I could ever piece together.” She cocked her head. “Could that be why it felt like my dreams were taking a toll on me?”

He nodded. “Your brain would have been sifting through and trying to soak up the memories. It would have been tough on your psyche.”

Then that totally explained it. Although … she didn’t think she’d dreamed of—well, had flashbacks of—him in weeks. Yet, she still felt weighed down by fatigue.

She puffed out a breath. “You’re nuts coming back for me and choosing to live a cursed life when—”

“The life I led was dark and dull and left me feeling dead. Until you.” He palmed her jaw and swept a thumb over the side of her face. “I talked about you to the rest of the Seven, trustingthem to keep it secret from the Uppers. That was my mistake. One you paid for. Never again,” he swore. “I don’t know who’s sending the notes, but I won’t let them hurt you.”

“Do you think whoever did it put a compulsion in the ink that would force me to stay away from you or something?”

“Maybe.”

“You’d think they would have given up sending me snares, considering the other three notes failed to work.”

“I don’t think they thought the most recent one would work either. I think their intention was to make you ask questions and leave me no choice but to tell you everything.”

She frowned. “How would they know you already hadn’t told me?”

“They won’t believe in a million years that you’d accept a man who’s the embodiment of a deadly sin. I’m not even certain you will.” An intensity gathered behind his eyes. “But I won’t let you go. I came to this world knowing I would stain it. I don’t then have the right to claim something good from it. But I’ll do it anyway. I need you.” He slid his hand from her cheek to her hair. “Never needed a single person in my life except you.”

The raw honesty in his voice was the good kind of punch to the chest. Much as he’d done some verbal ducking and diving and weaving since they first met, he was clearly set on being truthful here and now, even if it meant exposing his emotions. The guy seemed too damn self-assured to feel vulnerable doing so.

“You have no idea how close I’ve come to permanently binding you to me so you’d never escape me,” he said. “I’m selfish enough to do it; to ignore what that would mean for you.”

Her pulse skipped a beat. “Then why haven’t you?”

“Same reason I wouldn’t take your blood without your consent. Ineedfor you to want it. Want me. I get that thethought of irrevocably belonging to me might not be so thrilling. Still, I can’t let you go, Ella. You have to know I won’t.”

She licked her lips. “You’re throwing around words like ‘binding’ and ‘irrevocably’.”

“Because when I claim you, I willownyou. Every inch of your body, every part of your soul, every thought that passes through your head—it’ll all be mine. You’ll be shackled to me just as surely as you’re shackled to your psi-mate. My claim will bethatirreversible.”

Ella’s skin pebbled at the intensity with which he spoke. “I didn’t know angels could lay those kind of claims.”

He smoothed a hand down her hair. “I didn’t fully claim you last time because it’s a binding of souls; I wasn’t sure if my falling would somehow stain yours if we were that tightly connected, so I chose to wait.”

But then the rest of the Seven had taken her.

“I’m not pushing you to consent to it here and now, I’m just making it clear that itwillhappen. Not only because I want that, but because it’s the only way I can ensure that no one can take you from me again.” He lowered his face toward hers. “Fact is I love the fuck out of you, baby. There’ll never be a time when I don’t.”

He’d spoken so matter-of-factly, no awkwardness, no shame, no hesitation to give her such honesty. He needed to stop with these verbal feel-good punches. They were affecting even her demon at this point, and not a lot touched it emotionally.

“You’re not there yet. I know that. But you’ll get there. Unless you let what I’ve become poison what you feel.”

Maybe it should have poisoned all she felt. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t told her somemajorshit. But it would seem that not even such revelations could change how she felt about him. And even if ithadbeen too hard to accept, how could she ever have held it against him that he’d fallen when he’d done it for her?

“What I said at the Red Rooms still applies: That you’re cursed isn’t your fault. Yes, you knew what the consequences would be; you knew how it would impact everything and everyone around you. But you’re not responsible for the curse itself, or for becoming the personification of a deadly sin.”

“But you’re scared,” he sensed, his lips bowing down.

“Not of you. I’m scaredforyou. If my kind find out what exactly you are … ”

“There’s no reason they ever would.”

She anxiously rubbed at her nape. “What if the Uppers let it leak?”

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