Page 42 of The Girl and the Cobra

It’s also something that makes me weirdly jealous, but I’d never admit that out loud.

“I gave up everything for her. I would’ve changed the damn world for her. I tried to give her what I knew she always wanted.” Tristan shakes his head as he mumbles, “I killed our parents for her. I killed so many—”

I’m sure he says more, but I don’t hear him. My mind is too busy replaying what he said before.Our parents. He killed their parents.Their, as in, their shared parents… meaning Shay is his sister.

Oh, my God. This has to be a joke. There is absolutely no way this can be real.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m laughing. It’s a crazed, out-of-my-mind sort of laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

Tristan stands, his expression twisting into a severe scowl. “What’s so funny?” He tugs down his sleeve and covers up his sister’s name, but it’s too late. I already know the truth, and I can’t believe it.

“Nothing,” I say as I throw up my hands. “It’s not funny. It’s terrible. It’s—” I can tell he thinks I’m laughing at him, which isn’t the case. “We make a fun pair, don’t we? The guy who loved his sister a bit too much, and the girl who—” I bite my bottom lip to stop myself from saying it.

Even now, I don’t know that I can say it.

“Before Dr. Wolf said something, I never thought about it. It never occurred to me that, maybe, what Jordan and I had wasn’t normal. I would’ve blindly followed him anywhere. He was everything to me. He was my whole life. I never really cared about not having friends. It didn’t bother me that I never got asked out. I didn’t care about boys. The only boy I ever cared about was my brother.”

I meet Tristan’s gaze. He doesn’t scowl at me anymore; I think he’s realizing that I wasn’t laughing at him. “When I first met you, you did remind me of him. You’re violent. You’ve killed. But now… you’re nothing like him. He was all charming smiles and pretty lies while you don’t hide from the truth of what you are. You’re not Jordan.”

A shaky breath leaves me before I whisper, “And I hope I’m not Shay.”

Tristan steps over the creek to reach me, and his hands lift to cup my face. “You’re not.” He steps closer to me, his tall figure blocking out the rest of the world. “You’re so much more.”

My eyelids fall as I listen to him. Strange how effortless it is, how I believe him. Realistically, we’re strangers, but on a deeper level, I think we recognized each other immediately. Everything that could’ve been, everything that wasn’t, only led to everything that is and will be.

This is where I’m supposed to be.

As my eyes flutter open, Tristan watches me with concern. His thumbs caress my cheeks. “You don’t… think less of me?”

It’s hard for me to think about Tristan being different, about him being as dangerous as his past shows. Then again, it’s difficult for me to look back and think about the person I used to be, too. The old me, for example, would’ve been terrified to be alone with someone like Tristan.

Now? Now everything has changed. I’ve changed—and I think Tristan has changed, too.

We are two souls, broken by our pasts. Maybe together we can be whole.

So I give him the only answer I can, a short and simple “No.” As soon as the word leaves me, Tristan’s face tilts down, and his tall frame bends to close the distance between us. With his hands on my face, I couldn’t turn away even if I wanted to—but I don’t want to.

The world fades away around us. With the truth out there, with both our truths out in the open, there are no walls up. Nothing to stop us. Nothing to hinder the absolute yearning boiling inside us both.

Nothing else matters except the here and now. Everything in my past, everything I did, everything that haunts me, is gone just like that. The only thing I can focus on is the way Tristan kisses me, like he needs to steal the air in my lungs for himself and he can’t survive on any other air. The heat, the passion, the desperate eagerness laced with each push and pull of our mouths together.

This is it. By a twist of fate, I found someone who understands me, who doesn’t judge me, someone who can look at me without hatred in their eyes.

Tristan’s mouth doesn’t leave mine as his hands fall to my sides and he picks me up. I wrap my arms around his neck, andwithin five seconds my back is against a tree, where he pins me, holding my legs on either side of him.

He kisses me hard, so hard I fear my lips might bruise, but I welcome it. The intensity swallows me completely, and the only thing I can do is hope that I match it.

His lips break away so they can nuzzle my neck, and I breathe out a sigh as I shiver against him. “Maybe,” I whisper as he nips my earlobe, “we should go back to the house.” It’s not that I don’t enjoy making out in the middle of nowhere, but I think we’d both be more comfortable at the house, where I can take off this hoodie and feel even closer to him.

Tristan leans his forehead against mine, his black eyes boring into me. “Whatever you want.”

He ends up carrying me back—even though I tell him I can walk just fine. I think he likes having hold of me. Soon enough we’re upstairs, in my room, on my bed, no jackets hindering us as our bodies entwine.

God. I never knew things could feel so… so natural. Kissing him, feeling him hold me; it’s effortless, and I never want this moment to end.

Tristan must be on the same wavelength as me, because he breathes out the words, “I never want to let you go.”

“Then don’t.” It’s out of me before I can stop it, and as we lay there on my bed, side by side, Tristan brings a hand to my face. The way he touches me, so gently, truly makes me feel like I’m this amazing, precious thing. I can’t say I’ve ever felt anything like it.

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