Page 100 of Savage Crown

Not with the weight of his presence still pressing into me, inside me, beneath my ribs, wrapping around my lungs like something dangerous and consuming.

If I move, if I let go—even for a moment—I will lose this.

I will lose him.

I lay beside him, my body still thrumming, my pulse still echoing his name. It feels foreign on my tongue, like a secret I was never meant to say aloud. Like something I have been holding inside my chest for far too long. And now, after this—after us—I can’t keep it in anymore.

I can’t lie.

We both feel it.

I turn to face him.

His emerald eyes flicker open, half-lidded and unreadable, but I see the weight behind them. The same war that lingers inside of me. I take a breath, and it feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

My hands tremble as I reach for him, as I brush my palm against his bare chest, feeling the slow, steady beat of his heart beneath my fingers.

“Rylan,” I whisper.

His eyes darken, his body going impossibly still.

I swallow.

I give him the truth.

“I’ve always known you,” I breathe.

His brow furrows slightly, but he doesn’t interrupt.

Doesn’t move.

So I keep going.

“I knew your name before I ever met you,” I say, my voice shaking. “I knew your face, even when you didn’t know mine.”

A beat of silence.

Then—his fingers tighten around the sheets.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

His jaw tenses. “How?”

I take another breath, but it does nothing to steady me.

I brush my forehead against his, eyes fluttering shut, forcing myself to say the words I have buried for too long.

“I was sent to find you,” I whisper. “I was meant to help you reclaim what was stolen from you. The wealth, the name, the truth. But that’s not why I stayed.”

I pull back just enough to look at him, to let him see the naked, raw honesty in my eyes.

“I stayed because I love you.”

The words hang between us.

Like a dagger suspended mid-air, waiting to fall and carve something irreparable between our ribs.

---