Page 41 of The Queen's Serpent

“It’s over. Don’t make it harder than it has to be. We don’t belong together, and we never have, and you know that. Nothing you say now will change that. Nothing can change the roads we both must travel, and your path is not in the same direction as mine, Kai. Let me fucking go, I… I don’t love you anymore.”

“You are a liar, Isabella. You lie to yourself, and you lie to me.”

He moves forward, and his hand rises as he grasps my chin, the sensation of his touch against my skin searing right into the deepest part of my soul, as his eyes blaze into mine, with so much devastation and emotion in their ocean-blue depths. My words have wounded him, my denial of my feelings for him, ravaging him from the inside out.

That is what I do, what I am a master at. It’s the one talent that talentless Isabella Stratford has. I ruin everything around me. My self, my family, my grandmother’s hopes, and now even the man who I know genuinely loves me for me, not my name, power, or wealth.

I am the villain in our fairytale story. The roles are reversed, and he’s Cinderella. Except there is no fairy fucking godmother, no ball, and no carriage, and at the stroke of midnight, I will turn into a monster instead of a damn pumpkin.

My chest tightens until it’s pounding and constricting so painfully that I’m struggling to breathe. A tear cascades down my face, even though I’m trying my best to hold them back. I bite down on the inside of my cheek to prevent the sobs from leaving my lips, as I wrench myself away from his hold.

“Don’t do this, Isabella. Don’t run from me. I know you’re fucking lying.”

Show no weakness, Isabella, remember you are a Stratford. Don’t let them see you cry, my grandmother’s voice echoes in my head. I use her words to strengthen my resolve and my spine. I have to do this. I have to walk away from him. He doesn’t realize I’m doing this for him, so he won’t one day look at me with disgust and hate in those gorgeous eyes.

No, you just won’t be able to look at yourself in the mirror ever again, after demolishing his heart.

Fuck, I’m hurting him. I know that I am, but it will be so much worse if he tries to stay with me. Then he will truly see what I’m made of, all the worst, malignant, and insufferable parts that live and breed inside of me. The dark, smoldering ash that tries to suffocate me daily, pouring from my mind and filling all of my crevices with its grit. I’m worthless inside, irrevocably broken, so how can I love him, when I don’t even know how to love myself?

“I don’t want a life with you, Kai. You were just a way to pass the time, a handsome distraction, nothing more.” One more dagger slams into my heart, slicing me open from the inside and assuring me that I will bleed to death from my self-inflicted injuries, once this is done.

He inhales sharply, his blue eyes a storm of chaos. “You are a liar, Isabella, and I feel nothing but pity for you. You are so broken inside that you can’t even see what is happening around you. You are losing yourself, piece by fucking piece, to your own self-sabotage, and soon, there will be nothing left of the woman I love with all my heart.”

His words are nails, hammering deep into my flesh with their truth. I can see that he’s still holding onto a kernel of hope that I won’t end us, or walk away from the best thing that has ever happened to me. I can’t let him continue to hold on, to let him believe that there will ever be a chance for us, because there won’t be. Our love has to end, even if it rips my soul apart. I know with my next words, I will demolish everything that we were, ensuring that I end us forever.

I don’t want to utter them; they burn like acid in my throat, but I remember the way Stella looked at him, as if she was dissecting him piece by piece. Searching for his weakness, and the best ways to hurt him, so that he would leave me. The way everyone in my world has looked at him, as if he was fresh meat for their vicious claws. They will destroy him until nothing is left of the man I love.

“I slept with my dealer… I let him fuck me raw, while I was high as a kite on snow. He filled me up with his cum until it dripped out of me, and recorded it while he did it. Still think I love you? Still want to be with me, Kai?”

He staggers back a step and then another, his face paling, even as he tries to discern if I’m telling him the truth. His mouth opens and closes, but no words leave his clenched lips. I watch as his throat bobs with the effort to keep breathing, to swallow down the venom of my words, and his body trembles, struggling with the effort to keep standing, with the crushing truth that I have dealt him. The worst part is that it isn’t even a lie. I committed those crimes. I succumbed in a moment ofweakness to my demons, and in the process, set my world on fire, guaranteeing that I would lose him forever.

He swipes his trembling hands down his face, his body tense with suppressed violence. Does he want to reach out and hurt me, like I have done to him? Would he even be capable of violence towards me? My sweet, compassionate Kai, who has never hurt a fly in his life. The man destined to try to heal the world, and who mistakenly fell in love with a tarnished, self-destructing woman like me.

My heart screams that I love him, that we can’t lose him. That he is our future, but my mind knows the truth. We were never meant to be; only a monster can love another monster, and Kai is as far from being one as possible.

“One of these days, someone is going to find you dead somewhere of an overdose, Isabella. It will no longer be my problem, though. You’re fucking right, we’re done. I never want to see your whore face again.”

He turns and walks out the hotel room door, his head held high as he slams it in his wake so hard that it rattles the walls. The sound is horrifically loud in my ears,and it replays over and over until it’s all I can hear, aside from the sound of the last shards of my heart breaking.

He’s gone, it’s over. Now I can crawl into a hole, like the reptile I am, and die. Alone, always alone, that is my fate.

I burnt our love and our life to the ground, and left it smoldering in a fiery wreck, while I walked away with the scars on my heart and soul, and never looked back. Maybe that’s why the words refused to leave my lips, because, with them, I could doom us too, just like I did in my past.

Diego is not Kai. They are not even remotely similar, other than the fact that they both loved you.

Perhaps the words that Diego craved to hear refused to leave me due to everything that has happened since we arrived in thisisolated jungle, most of it traumatic and heartbreaking. How can the man tell me he loves me, when he took me away from all that I know? Stole me like a thief from my family. How could he claim to love me, when he was willing to share me with his men? That is not love; that is possession,no fuck, with Diego, it might actually be an obsession. He wants me, but only on his terms.

He wants me to be who and what he wants, carving out all my weaknesses, as if I were made of clay that he could mold. Then he could shape me into a version that he approves of. A version who can withstand this deadly life that he lives, whether I consent to it or not.

That happened in my past, too, with Kai. He, too, tried to mold me into being what he perceived was the version of me he could love. Someone who was good, honest, and caring, and could deal with her demons. It seems that I will never be enough for anyone. There is always something about my personality that needs changing, something that causes the other person to want to alter who and what I am.Why can I never be enough?

The image of large, bright blue eyes enters my mind again, followed by a crooked, mischievous smile. The sound of his carefree and cheerful laughter skates across the darkest recesses of my mind, and brings with it a longing for a past I cannot change.He’s gone, and I was not what he deserved. I could not be the person he wanted me to be. I am never what anyone truly wants or needs. I am nothing.

History has a way of repeating itself, if the lessons fate tries to teach you are not learned. I have yet to learn my lesson, it seems. I keep losing myself to others, trying to reinvent the sad girl who lives deep inside of me, instead of trying to heal her. The truth is, I have no idea who I am anymore. Nothing feels like it belongs to me, not the sadness, weakness, or desperation to survive.Do I even want to survive?

Am I the wealthy, spoiled Manhattan heiress, or the drug addict willing to give herself away for just a hit? Could I be a cartel boss’s wife, or how about a simple doctor’s wife? Who is Isabella Stratford, and how do I find her?She doesn’t exist; she never did. She’s an apparition walking amongst the living, unable to move forward, and stuck in the past.

I release a deep, miserable sigh at the thoughts circling endlessly in my mind. It’s like someone came in and scooped out all my insides with a rusty spoon, and left me empty, lost, and poisoned. Who am I now that I can’t be the person I once was? Am I even truly alive if I don’t know who I am anymore, or have a purpose? Was I ever alive to begin with? Have I ever had a purpose?All I’ve done is cause pain and bring headaches to my loved ones. I’m a problem, a mistake they are always stuck trying to solve.

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