Page 129 of Barbi and the Villain

His thumb caresses my wrist before he brings it to his lips for a soft kiss. Nonetheless, it’s one that makes my heart stop in my chest.

“More?”

He simply smiles.

“If I stop running, will you have me?” He turns to me to ask.

I gulp down. The look in his eyes makes me shiver with awareness.

“I—”

“I do not mean right now. I am aware I fucked everything up.”

“But what if you decide to run away again? What if…” I pause to gather my composure. “What if you get to Tartareia and you find a way to break our bond. What then?”

He stares at me.

“There is only one way through which I can show you that will not happen.”

I raise my brows in question.

“We will consummate our bond so our mating will be complete.”

My eyes widen in shock. But before I can process what he just said, he continues.

“Before you, my journey had only one outcome. Death. But with you… Maybe I will get a second chance at life.”

My tongue peeks out to wet my lips as I consider his words.

My chest tightens, my heart heavy with emotion. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted to hear, isn’t it? But why am I not more…happy? Why am I not throwing myself in his arms already?

The truth is that no matter how much I may yearn for him, there is a small part of me that doubts this—that doubts everything about us.

“Tell me about her,” I whisper. “About Mo.”

His features tighten, and he looks away.

“If you want this to work, you will have to open up eventually, Nykander. How can I accept you when I know close to nothing about you? About…your love.”

Just saying that aloud pains me more than anything. And that is one of the reasons why I doubt this so much.

I don’t want to be second best. I don’t want him to always think about his past lover and see me only as his consolation prize.

I want…everything.

Maybe it’s greedy of me to desire that. But I don’t want to be his second chance at life. I want to be his first and only. Too bad one woman already claimed that.

I swallow down against the wave of disappointment that envelops me.

The past is written in stone. I cannot change that. But the future…

“She was my wife,” he finally says.

I look at him in surprise.

“In my culture, when males reach their maturity, they will take their first lover, who also serves as their blood donor. It is not uncommon after that for a male to have multiple lovers. Marriage happens much later, when a male is seven to ten thousand years old. There is a group of females in Tartareia—the daughters of Tenebreis—who are specifically reared for the task to be a wife to a male in a position of power. Their breeding is immaculate, and they are raised in complete seclusion to be pure for their future husband and ensure that their children will also have the perfect pedigree. It is an archaic practice, but it is how things are always done within the ranks of the aristocracy.”

I nod, urging him to continue.

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