Page 295 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

I smiled at her. Just more brat code.

“I hate you, understand me? I hate you! I hate you, Reuben Weston!” Her voice rose steadily, and she screamed louder and louder. “I hate you! I fucking hate you, you horrible man!”

I was smiling, and there was a weird lightness in my chest. I chuckled at her display, trying to convince herself.

I knew what she was really saying.I love you. I love you and I hate you for making me feel this way.

“I know, baby. It’s okay.” I planted another tender kiss on her lips, just barely there, so sweet. “I know.”

A gut-wrenching cry of despair erupted from her throat. Alice’s whole body convulsed, and I saw the dam break as her tears spilled over. Her cries were deep and horrible, as if she’d witnessed a death, as if she’d surrendered to her own. The pain and the anguish seemed to set her whole body on fire, and she shook and screamed as she sobbed. Her gaze never left mine, as and she screamed as she looked at me, as if to say,please, take this, at least love me for this. If I have to hurt for you, at least love me for it.

I held her face in my hands, letting her tears fall onto my chest and at my feet, and whispering softly in her ear. She was, in that moment, more than the most beautiful girl in the world. She was more than mine. She was everything I could ever want, and everything I would ever need, as she faced both the darkness and the light.

“It’s okay, little bug. It’s okay. I know.”

“You’re so mean to me.”

“I know.” I kissed the top of her head. Her face was pressed into my chest, and her hair floated on top of the water of our bath. I could enjoy baths if I had her naked in my arms.

“I like it.”

“I know.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, silly girl... I’m so proud of you. I know that was hard. Do you feel better?”

“I feel like I died,” she whispered, crushing her face against my chest. “But it was good. I die every day. But this time, it was good. And I feel like myself again.”

“You do, don’t you?” I tilted her face up so I could stare down into her eyes. The dark blue with splashes of color never ceased to amaze me, and today they seemed even bigger than normal. “You die every day. All that pain, all that sadness, that frustration... you die, over and over. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

She nodded sadly, her eyes welling with tears again.

“But you do something special that nobody else can do. You wake up every morning. Anyone can die, Alice. It takes a special kind of monster to wake up the next day.”

Hope and affection blossomed in her eyes, and she smiled widely as she choked on a sob. Fucking hell, a smile like that, with tears in her eyes and a blush on her cheeks was enough to make any man fall in love.

She leaned her head against my chest again. And I took the bottle of body wash I’d set by the tub, squeezed some into a washcloth, and rubbed her down.

“Are you really going to edge me?”

“Do you want me to?”

She was quiet for a while, and the only reason I knew she was still awake was because she was twirling her fingers in my chest hair.

“Yeah. I want to try.”

“So you can hate me more?”

“Yeah.”

I laughed. “Okay. But fair warning... I can be pretty mean about it.”

“Good. I hate it when you’re nice.”

“Oh I know. You hate itso much.”

“Yeah. And I hateyou.”

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