Page 86 of Hunted to the Altar

“And you’re mine?”

“In every way I know how to be,” he whispered.

I reached out, placed my palm against his cheek—the same cheek Mya had slapped—and I let him feel it. My hand. My heat. My choice.

But he shook his head.

“No,” he rasped. “Not until you say so. You have to choose it. You have to choose me. And if you won’t—if you can’t—then end it.”

My fingers twitched.

“End it?”

His hands shook, but his voice was steel. “If you walk away—if you tell me there’s nothing left—I’ll do it myself.”

My breath hitched.

He reached behind him, slowly, reverently, and pulled the blade from the waistband of his pants. He laid it across his palms and stared at it. Then looked at me.

“I'll do it, Nina. I swear to God. I won’t live another day pretending this shell of me deserves breath while you’re forced to carry what I did. I’d rather bleed out at your feet than continue in this world without you.”

The room stopped breathing. Mya froze behind me. My own pulse screamed in my ears.

“You’d kill yourself?” I whispered.

“If it gives you peace. If it gives you justice. Yes.”

He held the blade out—not toward me this time, but toward himself. One firm shake away from digging it into his own ribs.

“I deserve death for the things I said. For the way I stripped you down, stole your voice, shattered your trust.” His voice cracked. “But if you let me live... if you give me one more chance—I will never raise my voice again. I will never take another step without asking what you need first. I will never, ever treat you like you belong to me. Because you don’t. I belong to you.”

He dropped the knife to the floor with a clatter. Then helowered himself until his face was pressed to the cold marble beneath my wheels.

“You are my queen,” he said, the words broken and holy. “My sun, my god, my redemption. I will bow every day until you believe I am worth standing beside. But if you don’t—if you walk away—I will not survive it. And I won’t try to.”

I looked down at him. At the hollow version of the man who once ruled empires and now begged to simply stay mine.

And I bent, shaking, heart racing, and pulled him up with trembling hands.

“I don’t need your death,” I said, voice trembling. “I need your life. Laid down. Rebuilt. Brick by bloody brick. I want you to live with the memory of what you almost lost. And every day you wake up, you remember that you live because I let you.”

He nodded against my palm, his eyes burning.

“I swear to you, Nina. I will be your calm. Your protection. Your safe place. Not your warden. Not your cage. Just your man. If you’ll have me.”

“I’m not whole,” I said. “But if I choose to love you again, it won’t be because you begged. It’ll be because I saw you on your knees, and I still wanted to rise with you.”

His throat worked, but no words came.

“I won’t promise forever,” I continued. “But I’ll promise today.”

He nodded, eyes closing.

And when I leaned forward, brushing my lips to his forehead, I felt him shatter quietly in my hands.

It was the first time in a long time that loving him felt like mine.

And for the first time, he didn’t try to take it?—