Page 123 of Stolen
“I won’t argue your beauty when it is simply fact,Myrrin. You weren’t what I expected,” he continues. “You weren’tanyof what I expected.”
“So, pretty or not, you just picked someone you thought wouldn’t matter.”
The bitterness in my voice makes me flinch. But not more than the hollowness blooming behind my ribs.
“I was wrong,” he says, voice breaking. “So fucking wrong.”
He presses a hand to his chest as though his heart is physically tearing inside him.
“I told myself I’d go through the motions—forge the bond, claim the power, and walk away untouched. Keep the lie alive. Maintain control.” His voice is low, rough with emotion.
“But the second you stepped into my life, everything unraveled.”
He swallows hard, eyes locked on mine, burning like twin embers in the shadows.
“Jules, I love y?—”
“Don’t.” I flinch, the word sharp in the air between us. “You’re just reacting. To the battle, to what happened. To relief. That’s not love. It’s adrenaline and guilt and pride all tangled up together.”
“No.” His voice breaks on that one syllable, fierce and full of truth.
“I knew long before today. Long before I saw you standing in the ruins like a goddess of fury, guarding children with blood on your cheek and fire in your eyes. I knew it when you made me laugh like a man, not a monster. When you challenged me without fear. When I realized, I didn’t want to let you go.”
I don’t want to hear this. Because if it’s real, I might give him all of me. And if it’s not, I won’t survive the crash.
“But you said it yourself, you’re not supposed to love me,” I whisper, voice cracking.
“I’m not supposed to feel anything. I’m the Lord of Air, my duty is to this realm. But you, you ruined all of that. I love you more than my name, more than my title, more than any claim I ever had on Nightfall. And gods help me, it terrifies me.”
I try to steel myself, to laugh it off.
“Ha. I scare you? The mighty Dragon Lord trembling before one mortal woman?”
He smiles then, dark and raw and shaking with the weight of too much feeling. “Scare me? No, Jules, you terrify me. You wreck me. You make me forget how to breathe. You look at me and I’m not in control of myself. Don’t you get it? You own me. You’re my everything. My salvation. And I don’t know how to survive that kind of mercy.”
Silence pulses between us.
And for once, I’m not afraid of the quiet.
Because his voice is shaking.
Because my heart is pounding.
And because despite everything, I think I still want him to keep going.
Ican’tignore what he’s saying.
Because his voice is the sound of ruin and truth all at once, and I’m a woman already half-consumed.
Chapter27
Jules
Sitting here with Alaric—hisknees brushing mine, the light casting shadows across his too-beautiful face—I ask him to tell me the truth about us. Abouteverything.
And it’s the hardest, worst, most wonderful thing I’ve ever done.
In this world or any other.
