Page 82 of Malice
“Do you really love him?” I found myself blurting like an absolute idiot.
Her head snapped up. “What?”
Ignoring the dulling pain between my legs, it was nothing compared to what was happening in my chest anyway, I closed the distance between us. “Do. You. Love. Him?”
Confusion sent her brows veeing low over her eyes. “That’swhat this is about?”
“Yes. Because I don’t understand any of it. If you were going to choose him all along, why give me hope? Why teach me what love looks like and show me I am capable of it if you had no intention of choosing me?”
“What are you?—”
“No. I’m not done. Until you, I’d never had any interest in love. It wasn’t something I considered possible. Or even important. I was loyal to nothing but my cause. But then you tumbled into my life and told me about it. Showed me what loving someone could mean. Gave me hope for a life I neverimagined. Now it’s the only thing I want for myself. So I need you to choose me, Merri. If you are going to love anyone, loveme. Don’t abandon what we have for Sin. Let me prove to you we should be together.”
My heart felt like it was ready to burst out of my chest by the time the words finished falling from my lips.
“Are you done now?” Merri asked, head tilted to the side and expression strangely hard to read.
I ran a hand over the back of my neck. “Um, yeah.”
She moved until she was standing directly in front of me, her hands cupping either side of my face and tugging me down until we were mostly eye level. “Silly warrior. I already have chosen you. I chose all of you when I agreed to stay here and save the world with you.”
Shock ran over my skin like someone had touched me with a live wire. “But... Sin.”
“Yes. I love him.”
“I see,” I rasped, understanding now that she’d never love me the way she did him, but she would still choose us all. I didn’t like it, but if that was all I could have, I’d take it.
“I love Sin. But, Chaos,” she whispered. “Look at me, please?”
I couldn’t deny her, even though my heart ached at the look in her eyes.
There was so much sincerity ringing in her voice when she added, “I loveyoutoo.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Generally speaking, I considered myself a fairly intelligent being, but love and all the emotions that came with it were as foreign to me as another planet. Which was why the best I could manage was a strangled “How?”
“What do you mean, how?”
“You said that when you love someone, they become the center of your world. So how can you love more than oneperson? That’s too many centers. By definition, they’d be in conflict with one another.”
Her lips quirked in a slight smile, but she schooled her expression. “My axis can be whatever I want it to be. Love isn’t finite. There is always room for more of it.”
“So I have to share your heart.” It was a statement because I knew the truth of it.
“Yes.”
“But only with the other three.” I shared everything else with the horsemen, so in a way, it made perfect sense we’d all be in this together. Not just to spite Lucifer, but because we’d chosen each other.
Her lips twitched again. “Well, maybe another one or two.”
“What?” That flame of jealousy sparked again.
“You are trying to get me pregnant, aren’t you? I’ll have to make room in my heart if you’re successful.”
Oh.
An embarrassed flush crept up my cheeks. I couldn’t believe I was jealous of my future child. The gods were laughing at me for my hubris.
“Of course,” I muttered, sliding my palm down until it rested over her lower belly. “Do you think we were successful?”
