Page 94 of Wrath of the Dragons
I can’t look at her.
She’ll be better off if I keep my damn mouth shut, a skill I’ve never mastered around her. I never expected her to love someone like me. It’s not her fault I can’t be worthy of her; that’s been years in the making.
“Stop pushing me away. Stop walking away. Just stop!” She latches her hand around my wrist, but I don’t turn around and keep walking even as she tugs. My sanity is holding on by a fucking thread, and my patience is so far gone I’m convinced it never existed. “Why can’t you look at me?”
All hells.
“Because I love you!” I roar while forcing myself to look at her, the statement dripping in the anger accompanied by an unwantedconfession. “I feel as if I’ve said the words in a thousand ways but if you need to hear them plainly, there they are. I love you. I am in love with you. Don’t ask me when I began because I don’t have an answer. All I know is that somewhere between meeting and marrying you, I realized I can’t live without you.”
The words race off my tongue, ripping open the bars on the cage I’ve locked them in for months. Elowen reels from them, stumbling back.
For a moment there’s no sound other than the waves below, singing a symphony with my pounding heart.
“I love you,” I say again, softer since she’s never responded well to yelling, “and I’m not mad at you. I can never stay mad at you, but you nearly died for me, and I don’t know how to live with that.”
My blood pumps through me so fiercely that I hardly hear her gasp. Her brown eyes stare at me as if I’m not real. It’s clear her first reaction is disbelief, which isn’t surprising. She’s spent a lifetime feeling unloved, but I’ll remind her every day if needed.
Even if I do nothing else right in my life, I’ll love her like she deserves.
“And—And I’m not worth it, Elowen.” A lump forms in my throat but I fight past it. “I’m not even worthy of you. I spent my life walking in the darkness, loving nothing, not even believing myself capable, but then you came along. This ember of hope, of light. I was damned before I even realized it and have been in agony for months, loving you in silence. If that scares you then you’ll have to find a way to live with it because I’m selfish to my core and will never be able to let you go. I would sooner forsake this world and reduce it to ash than ever live a day without you.”
“You…” She steps forward, and her hands return to grip my shirt right over my heart. “You love me.”
“My feelings have never had any stipulations. Even if you don’t feel the same, or feel even half of what I do, I’ll never stop.” I’ll accept anything from her, even crumbs. I’d rather starve for the rest of my life than be without her.
“You love me,” she repeats in a daze, staring up at me with wide eyes.
“The only time I let myself feel anything is when I’m with you. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that I’m incapable of love because you’re living proof that something beats within my chest, and it beats for you.”
I feel like I can’t breathe. I place my hands on her hips, reassuring myself that she’s truly here. In my arms. Sometimes I feel like I’ll wake up, all of this will be a dream, and I’ll have to go back to searching for her. I’ve never considered myself to be a kind man. I don’t concern myself over the feelings of others…but Elowen is the exception to all my rules. When I’m with her, I feel like a different person. A better person.
I lightly drag my knuckles down her cheek, savoring the feel of her while keeping a tight hold on the silk she’s wearing, terrified she’ll slip away. I’ve never done this, never felt this. I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. “There is nothing that I want more than you. There is not a single thing I wouldn’t do for you. There is nothing that I love more than you.”
“What if I change over time?” She licks her lips. “What if you wake up one day and resent me because I’m no longer the person I was when you made that decision?”
“If you change then I’ll spend the rest of my life finding new reasons to love you.”
She nods and tightens her hands on my shirt. “I love you, Cayden.”
I suck in a breath like she punched me in the gut—because that’s what it feels like. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
“I do.”
I shake my head. “Elowen, I’m not right in the head. You can’t say something like that lightly. All it does is feed my addiction.”
“I love you, Cayden Veles.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
“You don’t have to be a perfect person to be loved. You have my heart, and you guard it as fiercely as you guard my body. I will neverlove anyone as I love you.” Her hands weave through my hair and she yanks me down to slam our lips together. I tighten my hold on her hips and set her on the railing, stepping between her legs as she wraps them around me. She kisses me with a passion that sets my skin on fire. I run my hands along her body, doing anything to bring her closer.
This isn’t real.
I must be dreaming.
“I love you,” she murmurs against my lips, and I hang on to every syllable. “Even when our souls are forgotten wisps in the wind and the world ceases to exist, I’ll love you. Amito evidani.”
“Amito evidani, mia sirantia.”
