Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
“Reign, please listen to me. I —”
“But it failed,” he says in a guttural, abraded voice. “Not only did it fail epically, it actually made everything worse. I’m sicker now. Than I was before. I’m crazier. More insane, more obsessed. I’m fucking possessed, do you understand? And it hurts.” He thumps a hand on his chest. “Here. It fucking hurts, Echo. Even more than it did before. So now,” he licks his lips, “I have a plan.”
I twist my fists in his t-shirt. “What plan?”
“I plan,” he explains, his eyes narrowed, “on taking what I want. On taking what rightfully belongs to me. What should’ve been mine in the first place.”
What should’ve been his.
Me.
I should’ve been his; he’s right.
He doesn’t even know how right he is. I haven’t even told him yet.
All the things that I discovered. Only a few moments ago.
My heart in my throat, I whisper, “Me.”
“Yeah, you,” he confirms, his voice sanded down to a whisper too, scratchy and low. “Because you know that if I hadn’t backed down, Lucas wouldn’t have stood a chance. If I hadn’t pushed you to him, your fucking boyfriend wouldn’t be making ultimatums. I let him have you. I let him keep you. As a gift. But I’m taking it back because it’s my turn now. It’s my fucking turn to have what I want. And I’ve paid my dues, haven’t I? I’ve fucking paid them and then some and now I’m done. I’m done feeling guilty for what I want. I’m done feeling guilty for watching you, for that kiss, for wanting something that doesn’t belong to me. Because as it turns out, you do, don’t you?”
I swallow and breathe and fall apart and come together in a single moment. “Y-yes.”
His chest pushes out aggressively as he growls, “And not just for one night either.”
“No.”
“Yeah,” he rasps. “You’re mine, Echo. You’re fucking mine until I decide to give you back.”
“What?”
He comes even closer, his chest pressing into me with every breath he takes, every word he speaks. “That’s why you came here, yeah? To go back to him. To go back to your ex-boyfriend with your pure loving heart. And you can. But not before I’m cured. Not before you’ve soothed this ache in me. This hurt. There needs to be some justice, Echo. Some fucking compensation for all the ways you’ve consumed me. Not to mention, for coming up with the stupidest plan in the history of mankind. So you can go back to him and fix everything like the good girl you are when you’ve paid your dues to me. When you’ve fixed me. When you’ve fixed my sickness. You always wanted to fix me, didn’t you? Well, here’s your golden fucking chance.”
For the past month, I’ve been consumed by my need to save Lucas. To fix things for him. It’s only tonight — a few moments ago — that I’ve realized that that need had nothing to do with love. It was my guilt. This heavy, suffocating guilt of having a hand in his downward spiral.
I feel an immediate need to soothe him as well, this guy in front of me.
I feel this immediate, urgent need to make things better for him.
To pay my dues for making him ache. For making him watch.
But this is different.
Oh God, this is so different.
Yes, I’m guilty for not realizing my feelings sooner. For making him and myself think that I was in love with his best friend when I never was.
I never fell in love with Lucas because I was in hate with Reign.
But this urge to fix things for him comes not from a suffocating, choking feeling of guilt but from something that feels so good and warm and freeing.
Something that feels like summer and watermelon and lemonade.
Something that makes me want to wrap my arms around him and never ever let go.
Something like lo —
No, don’t think that right now, Echo. When everything is still in upheaval.
So there’s only one answer that I can give him.
That I want to give him.
That I give him with all my rapidly beating heart and throbbing soul.
“Okay,” I whisper.
His chest is still pressing into mine, his breaths still gusty. “What?”
I open my fists and slide my hands higher.
I go up to his chest and massage it, already slipping into my role of a good girl.
His good girl.
Because I’m his.
I always was.
“I’ll fix you,” I whisper again, digging my fingers into his steel-forged muscles.
His chest shudders.
His heart thunders beneath my palms.
“I’ll pay my dues.”
His mouth parts as his fevered gaze goes back and forth between my eyes. Then, “So you’re mine.”
Last night I had a qualifier on his statement, and it cut me so deeply to say it. Because it was such a lie. Tonight though, I can tell him the truth.
And smiling, I do. “I’m yours.”