Page 169 of Claimed In Darkness

I should fight.

I don’t want my last breath to be spent lying to him.

Right this moment, I realize, I don’t want to leave him.

The warmth pooling beneath me isn’t warmth at all.

It’s my blood. It’s my body giving up.

It’s the cost of every mistake I’ve made, every war I’ve fought, every moment I thought I could outrun this end.

"You stupid, stubborn woman,"Zephiran snarls, pressing a shaking hand to my wound, trying to stop what he can’t fucking stop.

"Why did you run? Why didn’t you fucking stay?"

I choke on a weak laugh.

That’s the real tragedy, isn’t it?

I spent so long trying to run from him and to escape the chains he wrapped around my soul.

Perhaps, deep down, I’m trying to prove I could be something without him.

But here I am, dying in his arms with the realization that I was never running from him.

I was always running toward him.

I blink up at him, the edges of my vision going soft, dark.

His face is all I can see.

His fury. His grief.

He is not a man who knows how to lose, not without taking the whole world down with him.

That’s why I have to stop him.

"Don’t do this,"I whisper.

His jaw locks.

"Do what?"

I swallow hard.

Everything.

I know exactly what he’s going to do.

I know exactly who he will become if I die here and I can’t let that happen.

I touch his face and he flinches like it hurts.

"Let me go."

He bares his teeth.

"Never."

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