Page 78 of Love's Ace

He growled in response, baring teeth just this side of too sharp in my direction.

I felt like I couldn’t move—I wasterrified.

It wasn’t being in this house, or the sight of Erin’s lifeless stare coming from his discarded head.

It was the way Wren was looking at me like he didn’t recognize me—the way I’d apparently become so dependent on himseeingme that it felt like a physical blow, more painful than anything that had happened here before.

“Wren, please…” I swallowed hard and realized that it was this house… it was always going to be this house.

It was always going to be thisplace.

It was always going to be here where I could get hurt, where I could be broken.

And…

It was going to be this place where I could stop it from happening again.

If I was strong enough.

Ihadto be strong enough—for him.

So… of course it had to be here. It had to be now.

It had to beWren.

“Wren, come on.” That darkness in his stare washaunting, like he’d somehow manifested every bit of pain I’d ever felt while I existed before I’d met him and it was shining now through his eyes. “Please.”

He stepped close to me, holding the slick, wet organ in his hand like he was showing me a prize. When his lips curled back in a snarl and his head cocked to the side, my heart felt as silent as the one in his hand. He wasn’ttherein the way he looked at me.

Hehadto still be there.

He couldn’t be too far gone.

None of this was supposed to happen to him.

Not because of me.

I stood still as he stalked forward, silent as he dropped Erin’s heart at my feet so he could trail a blood-soaked hand along my cheek. He was covered in pain and death, and he’d done it all because ofme, and now he couldn’t even recognize the person he’d lost himself for.

When his fingers slipped down to my throat and squeezed, I couldn’t stop the small sound that ripped from my chest.

“Wren, I can’tdothis without you.” I whispered it, terrified at how vulnerable it made me feel, how I’d promised myself in this exact fucking room that I was never going to let someone have this much power over me ever again.

But here we were, and my heart felt like it was trying to tear its way out of my chest so it could get to Wren, like it could crawl inside him and somehow make him whole again.

“Wren… please.Please…” I leaned into the press of his fingers, willing to give the last bit of breath I had to try to get through to him. “Please,stay with me.” When he’d said those words to me, it meanteverything.

And I was saying it now knowing it was stilleverything—I was flaying myself open wide and raw in this room that had broken me, with every chance it would do it again.

If it did, I hoped he’d at least make it quick. If I had to die, maybe I’d see the soft violet of his eyes one more time before I went.

And if I had to die…

I pressed forward and kissed him, fingers slicking through the blood in his hair as I pulled him to me.

He snarled against my mouth, but I just used it as a chance to slide my tongue inside. I wanted to taste him.

I wanted to fill myself up with him.

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