Page 36 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

“A lot of things. The night Corry was turned. Eros killing his friend. Vincent serving out his role of trophy blood whore in front of everyone.”

Sterling twisted toward me, sliding closer on the bench with a darkness in his eyes that made me scoot backward. I almost fell off, but his arm hooked around my back and pulled me against him.

“What memories did he show you of me, Ruby?”

My heart skipped over my ribs, playing its own tune, though it was slightly less graceful than Sterling’s. “The night he killed Elizabeth. And the night you were turned.”

His hand clenched into a fist between my shoulder blades, and his cheeks turned ashen.

“I didn’t see much,” I added like that would soften the blow somehow. By the look on his face, it didn’t. After several more moments, he said nothing. He didn’t let go of me either.

Even when he began to tremble.

His arms dropped to his side, and he hung his head, silken trusses concealing much of his face. He tried to pull away from me, but my arms remained locked around his neck. I wouldn’t let his shame push me away. Not again.

“Sterling—”

“Release me.”

“No! You need me. Seconds ago, you were going to give me your mark. Now that you know everything I came to tell you, I need you to mark me. And I want you to do it without all the hatred in your eyes. If you have to think about how much you hate the monster that is Thomas Knight while you rail his daughter, fine. But I won’t be able to stand it if I have to look at you as you revel in your own self-hatred.”

Tearing out of my arms, he reeled back, a scathing snarl twisting his features. “Don’t you get it? I’m broken. You saw what he did to me. He tore me open, again and again, taking from me until there was nothing fucking left!” Sterling was yelling now, his voice jumping an octave and splintering beneath the brunt of his despair. “Why are you so desperate to be mated to a disgraced shell of a man?”

“You’re not a shell!” Now I was screaming too.

This entire night was so surreal for a dozen shitty reasons. Now tack on the fact that Sterling and I were in a heated shouting match. This was something on-brand for my and Vincent’s dynamic. Not Sterling.

“Your trauma doesn’t make you ugly or empty. And I want to be mated to you because of the man you manage to be, even as my father used every trick he had in his book to crush and break you.

“If you’re so empty, why is it that everyone loves you so much? Take Lavinia, for example. That girl is pigtails deep in enemy territory after betraying her master because she’s head-over-heels in love with you. How is it that a shell of a man earned the devotion of that little icicle of a girl? Or my mom. She hated vampires until she met you. But she trusted and cared about you so much that a vampire slayer was ready to run away from the Helsing Guild forever and raise her daughter with the very thing she was born to kill.

“And me?—” I closed my eyes, my breath rattling. “To say the man I love is empty inside is a slap in my face. The fact that you’re talking about yourself doesn’t make it okay. I get that you’re hurting. I’m hurting too. But you can’t keep hiding your scars from me. And you know what I think?”

I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see him under the torrent of tears that streamed freely down my cheeks. “I think you knew this whole time that I possessed the ability to enter your mind. And you didn’t say shit because you’re terrified that if I see everything you are inside your head, I’ll find nothing but my father’s broken leftovers.”

I couldn’t make out the details of his expression from the blur of tears, but I could scent the salt of his anguish now.

He sprung forward and shoved me back down onto the bench, looming over me with a glint in his eyes that ran me through like a stake.

His feather-white hair tickled my cheeks, and his tears rained down on me, dropping in my eyes and filling my mouth with the taste of his torment. He took my hands and placed them on his bare chest, the touch intimate even as his pained expression bored into me.

“Fine... If you are so taken with my scars, enter my mind, Princess. If you can. If you look upon all that I am and are not repelled, I’ll give you my mark.”

I blinked away the tears. “Don’t you get it? I want more than your mark. I want more than your kindness, your mentorship, your companionship, and your cock. I want your heart.”

“Oh, Miss Baxter.” He swept a stray lock of hair behind my ear, wearing a heart-wrenching look. “You already hold my heart. Sadly, it stopped beating long ago.”

Reaching up, I held his face between my palms, my fingers threading in his hair. “Let me inside. Let me try to get it beating again, even if it’s just in a dream.”

Against all odds, I smiled up at him. Tears squeezed out from the corners of my eyes. “At least it will be a dream we share.”

Chapter fifteen

Light in the Dark

Withmylegsdanglingoff the piano bench and my back flush with its smooth veneer, my position wasn’t exactly a comfortable one. But I’d stay here forever if it meant enjoying this view of Sterling for just as long, crouched over me in his lithe, muscular, moon-pale perfection.

Though, what held me captive beneath him wasn’t his angular features, the ridges of his marble abs nestled against my soft belly, or even his semi-erect hunger jabbing me in the thigh through his sweatpants. It was the naked adoration on his face as his cloudy gaze bore right through me, just a hair off-kilter—like it always was.

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