Page 98 of Killaney Blood

"Yeah," I say, my voice firm. "I need you to stop avoiding me in my own house."

She stands, the book clutched to her chest like a shield. "I'm not avoiding you. I've been checking your bandages, making sure you're healing properly."

"You know that's not what I mean."

She tries to step around me, but I block her path, ignoring the twinge in my side.

"Move, please."

"No."

Her eyes narrow. "You're going to tear your stitches."

"Then you'll have to fix me again, won't you?" I take a step closer. "Since that's all you want to do now. Fix me and run."

"I don't want to have this conversation."

"Too bad. We're having it." I take the book from her hands and toss it into the chair she was just in. "You don't get to decide we're nothing after everything that's happened."

"I never said we were nothing." Her voice wavers slightly. "I said I'd work for you. That's something."

"Fuck that." I move closer, backing her against the bookshelf. "You're running. Again. And I want to know why."

"I told you why."

"No, you gave me some excuse about not being able to give me what I want. But you never asked what I actually want."

Her chin lifts, defiant. "Fine. What do you want, Declan?"

"You." The word hangs between us, raw and honest. "Just you. Not some imaginary future with kids and white picket fences. Not some perfect woman without scars or past trauma. You, Lyra. Exactly as you are."

She shakes her head, but I see the water gathering in her eyes. "You say that now, but?—"

"No." I place my hand on the shelf beside her head, caging her in without touching her. "Don't tell me what I'll feel or think in the future. You don't get to decide that for me."

"I'm trying to protect you," she says.

"From what? Being happy?" I lean closer, my voice dropping. "Or are you just protecting yourself from getting hurt?"

A tear slips down her cheek, and it takes everything in me not to brush it away. "Both," she admits. "I don't know how to do this, Declan. I've never had anything good that wasn't taken away."

"So you're taking it away first?" I ask. "Before someone else can."

She doesn't answer, but she doesn't have to. Her eyes tell me everything.

"Lyra." I say her name like it's the only one I know. "I've killed for you. I've bled for you. Your damn blood is coursing through my veins right now. Do you really think I'm going to walk away because you can't have children? Do you think so little of me?"

Another tear falls.

"What about," I wince as I adjust my hand against the bookcase, keeping her put, "what about focusing on what you can give me, what you have. Before you, life was meaningless. I thought my place was to serve my family, and since it could never be in the way I wanted, I lived like life was a joke. Cash, women, fighting, it's all just to feel alive, to feel something. But you," I pause, shaking my head, "you turned all that upside down. Suddenly, what meant everything to me meant nothing. You, being near you, with you, protecting you, making love to you. I could spend my whole life just doing that, and feel like I've won. You made me realize that by not being what I thought I wanted to be, I could become the man I was meant to be."

I shift and take another step, reach out, and cup her face, finally allowing myself to touch her. "Let me prove it to you. Let meshow you that you're enough. More than enough. I love you, and I'm not going to ever stop."

She leans into me and starts crying.

"I'm so scared, Declan," she admits, and it might be the most honest thing she's ever said to me. "What if it doesn't work and you change your mind?"

"What if it does work and I don't?" I counter. "What if this is the one good thing neither of us has to give up?"