Page 103 of Savage Crown

“You shouldn’t have told me that.”

She blinks.

Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak.

I exhale, pushing to my feet, shoving my hands through my hair as if I can tear the feeling of her away from me.

“You don’t understand what you’ve done.” My voice is low, raw.

She sits up slowly, the sheets slipping from her bare skin, exposing the marks I left in the heat of the night.

I shouldn’t look.

I shouldn’t want.

But I do.

Gods help me, I do.

Her sapphire eyes search mine, so steady, so open, so damn certain. It infuriates me.

Not her confession or the love she protests.

But the fact that she meant it.

That she isn’t afraid of what it means.

That she isn’t afraid of me.

I move almost instinctively.

I grab her chin, tilting her face up to mine, forcing her to see the war inside me.

"You think love is a gift," I whisper. "You think it will keep you safe."

Her lips part, her breath catching at my touch.

I lean in closer to feel the heat of her skin.

"But love is a curse, Seraphina," I murmur, voice sharp as steel. "It makes men weak. It makes them blind. It makes them bleed."

Her lashes flutter, but she doesn’t look away.

She should.

She should.

Instead, she reaches up, her fingers brushing against my jaw.

"And what does it make you?" she whispers.

My chest tightens.

I don’t know.

That’s the problem.

I have lived my life without love.

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