Page 68 of Crushed Vow

God, I did.

I hated what he did to me.

Hated that he gave the order to have my mother put to sleep—without telling me, without giving me the chance to see her one last time.

Knowing I’d spent the past ten years of my life searching for her.

That my entire existence had revolved around the hope of finding her.

I hated him for taking that from me.

I hated him for the bruises he left on my heart even more than the ones he left on my skin.

But there was something even more damning than hate.

Grief.

Because somewhere in that grief, I still remembered how it felt to sleep beside him. How his arms used to wrap around me like armor. How he used to press his lips to my forehead and whisper, “You’re safe now.”

He used to look at me like I was his world.

Now he couldn’t look at me at all.

I backed away from the window, breath ragged, hand trembling against the sill.

I felt suffocated.

I tried to cook something just to stay busy, but I ended up burning the rice. Threw the pot in the sink and watched steam rise from the mess like smoke from the fire we’d just escaped.

I’m not sure how long I stood before I gave in—walked quietly back to the window. Just one more look.

He hadn’t moved.

Just sat there.

Hands on his knees.

Head tilted like he could feel me watching.

And somehow... I think he could.

That night, I tried to sleep.

God knows I tried.

But my body was exhausted. My soul was worse.

But my thoughts kept spinning, chewing through the silence like wolves.

All I saw was fire.

The way Cassian had burst through the smoke—eyes covered, arms outstretched, like he was born from it.

The way he ducked me just as a beam collapsed.

The way our lips brushed—soft and terrified and real—as he shielded me from flames meant to kill us both.

I kept whispering to myself, “Don’t think about it. Don’t feel anything. He lied. He killed your mother. He punished you.”