Cold Devotion | ✔️

Chapter Thirty-Five

Colton

We lay a panting mess, the papers scattered everywhere in the room, our clothes littering the dark floor. Our frantic breathing is the only thing that can be heard other than the faint humming of the facility.

Rose rolls off of me and falls down onto the mattress beside me, her naked body curling against mine. Everything is ever changing around us, new threats everyday, new problems arising but she... she is constant. She is the one thing that never changes, my love for her... never changes.

I watch as she idly traces the outlines of my tattoos with her finger, her touch almost sending me into overdrive.

My hand finds its way to her back and I slowly follow the curve of her spine, relishing the feeling of her soft skin grazing against my own.

I love her and I would go to the ends of the world in order to keep her safe. I would give up everything I have just so she could live to see another day. The things I would do for her are endless. All for this one girl.

I reach over to the nightstand and open the drawer, digging through it to find the one thing that has the power to shatter my heart completely, but also to bring the pieces together. I grab Rose's diary and as soon as her eyes meet with the familiar notepad she sits up in bed. Her beautiful dark hair falling to cover her naked torso.

"How did you find it?" she whispers, her eyes wide in shock.

"I went back, after the attack, to scout out the area with a couple of the generals and I found it in the debris. I didn't read it, despite how tempting it was," I flash her with a smirk and she visibly relaxes which only intrigues me more to find out what she has written in this.

"Well I'll be taking that back," she goes to reach for it but I move it away. Rose drops her hand and glares at me with that fire I have grown to be so drawn to. Like a moth to a flame.

"I wrote something in there... but don't read it now," I admit and pray that by giving her this piece of me, she doesn't believe me to be the monster she has always sought me out to be. That she sees the side of me no one else has, or ever will for that matter.

"What did you write?" she questions and my heart pounds. I practically handed her my heart in those written words.

"Everything I want to say to you... and more," Rose out of all people should know that I would never be able to voice my feelings towards her, so writing was the best I could do.

"Thank you," she says softly and I tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, before placing the diary in front of her.

She slowly reaches out her hand to pick up the diary, trailing her finger down the spine of the book. "I was going to give it to you sooner but seeing the current circumstances..." I trail off and she laughs a little. The sound warming my heart, breathing life into me.

"I'm excited to write in it again... there's no shortage of things to write about," she says lowly and my soul freezes over yet again. I wish I could give her the life she deserves, a life of peace, a life where she doesn't have to live in fear. But I can't.

We are all stuck here, in this miserable life of nothing but war and death. For what though? So the government can keep their power and the assholes like Rose's father can continue to treat everyone like crap for their own advances, for their own gains.

"We'll get out of here one day and we'll go wherever your heart is content," I promise and she looks up, her hazel eyes glazed over.

"As long as you're with me... I don't care where we go," Rose whispers and I wonder how after everything I have done, how I deserve her.