Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
I look her over, lowering my mind’s wall just a bit to hear what she’s thinking.
No one trusts him alone. He’ll hurt himself. I have to stay with him.
“I will not hurt myself,” I snap, and her brows dip. “Besides, it’s better to leave me alone than to sit there staring at me with pity in your eyes.”
“I don’t pity you,” she counters.
“Please. Everyone pities me. It’s why they all tolerate me. I’ll always be that sad boy who was ripped away from his mother and tormented by his father. Didn’t you get the memo?”
“They tolerate you because they love you. And I don’t know why you’re taking this anger about your mother and your father out on me all of a sudden.”
I turn my back to her, facing the balcony doors. “I’ll be fine, Willow. I don’t need you checking on me like I’m a child. I just need a moment to think.”
“Think about what, exactly?”
I drop my head. “Please, Willow. I don’t want to play your game of questions right now.”
“Well, I have to ask you, Caz, because you’re blocking me out. I don’t get why you’re doing it, but I want to understand.”
“Understand what?” I snap, whirling around to face her. Her eyes stretch, alarmed by my anger, but she blinks it away. “There is nothing to understand. A woman is dead because of me. That’s it. And Decius may be wrapped up and put away for now, but we don’t know how long that’ll last. We don’t know if Korah will go back to Earth, abandon all of this, and leave Decius out there. She’s done it before. Why wouldn’t she do it again? We don’t know a damn thing of what’s to come or what will happen.”
“I get that,” Willow replies, much calmer than I anticipated. “But being angry with me and avoiding me won’t help you, and you know it.”
“I never said I was angry with you,” I mutter.
“You don’t have to say it for me to see it.” She climbs off the bed and moves across the room to me. “If me being here and our Cold Tether is causing you to resent me, then I can leave. The portal is right there. I still remember the chant. I can say it and I can go.”
“Love of Vakeeli, I never said that.”
“I know you didn’t, but I can sense it, Caz. All of what you’ve been through is because of our Cold Tether, and I know the bottom end of it sucks because sometimes it sucks to me too. But you and I can both agree I was safer on Earth, and you were safer here without me. When we were apart, no one died. Everyone was fine.”
I grasp her face between my fingers before she can step away, forcing her eyes on mine. “Willow, how do you not get it by now? I want you more than the air I breathe. I want you in this life, and the next, and whatever life comes after this, but all of these Cold Tether issues is new territory for me, and if I lose you in this lifetime, I’ll kill myself. I know I will. And I’m struggling with that—coping with the idea of your loss, but also wanting you in my life every single day and night. You don’t think I want to wake up to those beautiful brown eyes of yours every morning? To kiss your lips until they’re raw every night? I want all of that and more, but it’s fucking terrifying to have that here, Willow. I know I said I want you here with me, that I would love for you to make a life in Vakeeli, but losing Della made me realize this isn’t a game and that I need to get my ego in check. I won’t always win, and I can’t fathom another loss.”
Her eyes are glassy, and my vision has blurred, but I continue holding her gaze. When she blinks, tears slide down her cheeks. I stroke them away with the pads of my thumbs.
“No one has ever spoken to me that way,” she whispers.
I tip my head back a bit. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Her head shakes, and she brings her arms up to lace them around the back of my neck. “You said everything right.” Her lips press to mine, warm and sweet with wine, and I sigh, drowning in her touch, her kiss…all of her. I stumble toward the bed and collapse when the backs of her knees hit the edge.
“I’m terrified,” I confess on her lips. “I’m scared to lose you.”
“I know. But you won’t.”
“You don’t know that. This world is fucked up.”
Her lips find my cheek, and she places a tender kiss on the apple of it. “We’re all a little fucked up. I can deal.”