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“You said you didn’t want a husband.” Rejection darkened his features.

The memory of my own words back in Warrich—words I’d said about Elias—scraped in my chest. “And why would you, when you’re nineteen years old with the weight of this world on your shoulders?

” He shook his head. “I refuse to force that— myself —on you, especially when I’m bound to Molochai, and I don’t know how long I… ” He trailed off, voice trembling.

“You should have told me,” I whispered. “I wanted you .”

“You just wanted me to fuck you.” His face contorted in pain .

Tears bit at my eyes because he believed that was true. It wasn’t all I wanted. It was all I allowed myself to have.

“Ella, this is your reality now. I wanted to give you the chance to figure out who you are, what you want in this life.”

“It was my right to know.”

“And I’m a fucking coward!” The words cracked out of him, harsh and low. “I’m a coward for being so terrified to lose what affection you’ve had for me these past weeks. I couldn’t stand the thought of being another person trying to trap you into a role you don’t want.”

He ran his hands over his face and paused, considering his next words.

“From the day you were born, others have determined who they want you to be. You have spent your life in shackles, Aryella, then and now.” He wrapped his hands around my tired, trembling fingers.

“There isn’t a time or a life or a universe where I do not love you, but I will not tell you what I am to you now .

You decide. I’ve tried—and likely failed—to show you the best of me, to show you how much I love you, but it is your choice .

” His face contorted with jealous agony, and I knew he was thinking of the other things—the other person —I could choose. And it was killing him to let me.

“Your life—what we were—was stolen,” he continued.

“And gods , when… if the time comes that I am free from Molochai, I pray that you choose me again.” Desperation bled out of him like he’d been cut wide open just as I had.

“But choose me in this life, not because of a vow you made four centuries ago in a life you don’t remember.

When I said the one thing I want most is your freedom, I meant it.

I am many, many terrible things, but for you, I will not be another chain. ”

“Then you shouldn’t have come.” But the words sounded unconvincing, even to me.

“If this is my life now, you shouldn’t have shown up here.

” My throat tightened. I’d let him touch me.

I’d begged him for more. I’d wanted more then, and a part of me I feared still did want him.

“You shouldn’t have let me… feel things for you. ”

“And I told you I’m a selfish bastard,” he uttered darkly.

“I couldn’t stay away from you, Ella. If I was a better man, I would have, but I’m not.

I had to know you could fight for yourself before going to those people.

I had to try… for your heart… gods, I had to try.

And I had to know you again if it was the last thing I ever did. ”

“But I’m not her anymore.” I shook my head. “I’ll never be whoever she—whoever I was—to you.”

Though it was true, I only said it to remind him of what he’d lost and could never get back. I lashed out, needing to share this hurt. And I knew he would sit there and take whatever cruel words I delivered.

He did. He took my beating and squeezed my hand, his gentle smile infusing me with familiar, soothing heat. “You will always be my miracle.” A tear rolled down his handsome face, over his scar and beard. “Simeon erased your memories, but he could never erase you.”

I sealed my lips together, my jaw shut, to suppress the sob threatening to wrench free.

I stared at his large, calloused hands as they held mine.

Those hands that had sliced the blade through Phillip and Oliver Gold’s throats were attached to his body.

I had also seen firsthand what Molochai could do and dared to wonder if there indeed was a part of Gavin that Molochai controlled.

Because when I looked at him, I was angry, but I couldn’t tell if I was angry for me or for the both of us.

No matter how much I wanted to hate him with every morsel of my being, his touch, his voice, his presence all remained a welcome invasion. My body betrayed me. There was a pull inside me that couldn’t detach from him, and it was stronger now than it was before.

But right now, anger was the only safe feeling. It made sense, and I told myself I needed it to heal.

Weeks ago, I had been an empty canvas hidden away in my cabin, waiting for the brightest paint to stick, and now I was nothing but muddled strokes of silvers and reds and blues and golds and black. That’s what happened when you tried to fit too many colors on one canvas .

I didn’t have to speak for him to see it seething from my soul. I let the chaotic darkness bleed out so he could witness what he’d done, what they’d all done. You could only twist and pull a rope in so many directions before it snapped.

“I want you to go,” I whispered. A lie, but I forced it out.

He swallowed hard and released my hands.

“Please go,” I spoke, this time to muffle the part of me that was crying out for him. “ Please .”

Agony burned in his gaze, but his unrelenting love—now freed by his truth—was stronger.

Unbound. He stood to go. “I love you, Aryella.” My gut twisted when, despite the hurt my words caused him, his gentleness endured.

“I have loved you since the moment you walked into my blacksmith’s shop, since the moment—” He huffed out a tearful breath that cracked my chest wide open.

“I have loved you since the moment I first saw you, and I will never stop.”

He turned his back to me and stopped in the doorway, where he unearthed a note from his pocket. It looked to have been folded and unfolded multiple times.

“Damond knows everything. Anything more you need explained, he’ll tell you.

” He placed the paper on the chair by the door.

“Please read this before you go to those Caves.” His throat flexed with a hard swallow.

“And Ella?” He met my gaze, passionate fury and plea brimming in those hickory depths.

“Don’t let this world take one more thing from you. ”

The door closed behind him, and he was gone.

I buried my face in my hands and cried the only weak, painful sobs my damaged body would allow. I wanted to scream. I wanted to drown everything and burn everyone until the only thing left in this barren wasteland was the truth.

But all I could feel was black.