𝔸 ℂ𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕙 (Book 2)

Hundred-Seven

When I felt as sorted as I could be, my eyes finally opened, staring up at the sky as rain hit my face. Searching for the bright stars beyond the cloud cover.

And then I looked over. Watching Rhys watch me.

He stepped closer. Breaking the silence that enveloped us for a moment. "Tell me what you're thinking, Danika." He pleaded, "Tell me and I will listen." I could scarcely hear his words over the storm around us. But they still carried. Still punched through me.

I didn't answer for a long moment, simply staring at his eyes. Watching as the rain dripped across his golden features, wetting his hair and molding around him as though he controlled that too.

This time I could not close my eyes. This time I could not look away or tell myself something that would stop it. Because this time I knew it could not be stopped.

"I..." I trailed off, squeezing my eyes shut and feeling as the rain ran its cool hands down my shoulders. Down my face. A caress. Something to center me. And it was enough. Enough in that moment for me to get the breathy words out. "I am thinking that I look at you and I feel like I'm dying." I repeated his words, barely audible over the rain and yet I knew he heard them. "Like I can't breathe. I'm thinking that I want you so badly I can't concentrate half the time I'm around you...And as much as I want to give in..." again I squeezed my eyes tight, "I can't." my voice broke on the last word.

"Why?" No judgment.

I looked at him, my gaze unflinching as I muttered, "Because everyone that I let myself care about leaves. Death or betrayal, it doesn't matter they're all gone. And..." I choked back the burning in my throat, "I don't want you to leave too."

And maybe because I thought I deserved it. Maybe this was atonement for my crimes. The crimes, if given the chance, I would commit again because they had been so carefully placed in my mind. So carefully crafted that I could not shake them.

My darkness was a part of me. And as much as I loathed it, I could not change it.

This loneliness...this loneliness was my punishment. My curse. The very loneliness that disappeared when I was around him. Chased the darkness away and filled me with understanding and peace and—no.

To have that ripped away...snatched from my grasp as though it was never there at all, it would destroy me. Shred me to pieces until I was nothing more than a mere shell of existence.

Rhys took a step forward, and I could not bring myself to stare into his eyes. For fear of what might be in them and for the terror of the fact I might very well forget after all.

And then his hands were on me. His thumb caressing my cheek as he drew his rain-soaked forehead to mine. Leaning on each other in a way that felt like he was trying to bear the burden of my mind. To lift a bit of the weight from my shoulders and put it on his own.

I could not breathe. Could not feel nor worry. I simply existed, utterly and irrevocably lost in a word of thoughts and wants. Of walls and needs.

I found that I was simply drifting. Torn between two worlds. One that everything in me wanted to go toward, that everything in me told was right. And the other, full of darkness, full of sorrow.

It should have been an easy decision. And yet I felt more pulled apart than I ever had.

But I found myself putting my hands on his shoulders, resting my forehead against his as though he were a lifeline. The only thing keeping me grounded in this otherwise spinning world.

"I won't leave." he promised, voice carrying through the thundering scene around us.

A shuddering breath. "You don't understand, Rhys." I murmured over the pouring rain, "It's not only that." I shook my head and yet still made no move to pull away from his embrace. "You are good and selfless and kind and everything and I...I am a monster."