His nostrils flared. “You want to go off the grounds? Away from Hawksridge?”
The thought excited me. I didn’t want to go back to London or seek out my old life—not anymore, but it would be nice to go somewhere just the two of us.
A date.
“You can trust me, Jethro. You know that. I wouldn’t run if you took me somewhere public.”
A painful shadow crossed his face. “I know you wouldn’t. And that’s what fucking kills me.”
My heart stuttered. “Why?”
He slouched, pushing me against my door so my back kissed the wood and his lips kissed mine. The kiss was fleeting and soft, but the emotion behind it squeezed my chest with an agonising weight.
I didn’t know what the weight was. But the pressure built and built with words dying to leap free.
I.
Love.
You.
After what had just happened between us, it was all I could think about. I wanted to scream them. Blare them. Let him know that my caring for him wasn’t conditional or cruel.
I loved him. For him. For his soul.
His lips skated over mine again—the sweetest connection.
“Jethro,” I breathed. “I—I lo—”
He froze, slamming his fingers over my mouth. “Don’t say it.” Dropping his touch, he shook his head. “Don’t say it. Please, Nila.”
“But why shouldn’t I…when it’s the truth.” The weight on my heart grew deeper, stronger. I had no choice but to tell him. The words physically suffocated me, needing to be said. “You mean everything to me.” Placing my hand over his heart, I whispered. “Kite…I’m in love with you. It doesn’t come with conditions or commands. I can’t hate you for what you did today or what you might do in the future. I’m scared and lost and absolutely terrified that I’m doing the wrong thing by choosing you over my own life—but…I have no choice.”
He sucked in the sharpest breath. “You called me Kite.”
My heart bottomed out.
His name bulldozed through the partition I’d managed to keep in place. My feelings toward Kite plaited with my feelings for Jethro.
I slammed deeper into love.
He’s mine.
His eyes squeezed closed, pressing his forehead on mine. “Nila…you—you don’t know what you’re doing to me.” He trembled in my arms, his hands bracing himself on the door. “Take it back. I—I can’t take so much from you.”
“I can’t take back something that already belongs to you.”
Tears.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted free my terror at falling in love. I wanted to beg him to be strong enough to choose me after stealing everything that I was.
I couldn’t compete with what he did to me in the spring. He’d reached inside me and ripped my heart from my chest. I didn’t fight it. In fact, I’d carved it out for him.
My hands were bloody from presenting it to him with open arms.
I.
Love.
Him.
Before, I was in a cage.
I wasn’t any more.
I could see. I was free. I believed.
“Tomorrow.” He exhaled shakily. He clasped my jaw, running his thumbs over my cheeks. “You’re mine. You deserve to know the man you’ve chosen—the man you’ve saved.”
A shooting star sliced through my soul. “I saved you?”
A soft smile tugged his lips. “You have no idea, do you?” He kissed my forehead, filling it with overwhelming feeling. “No idea what you’ve done to me.”
His delectable smell wisped around us. I wanted to fall into him and never let go.
He whispered, “Tomorrow, everything that I am becomes yours.”
I shivered at the truth in his eyes, the echoing affection. “Tomorrow.”
With a barely-there kiss, he transmitted every emotion he couldn’t say and backed into the shadows of the corridor. “Tomorrow, I’m taking you away from here. I’ll give you what you’ve selflessly given me. I’ll tell you…everything.”
Overnight, I’d turned from a supple young woman to arthritic hag.
I didn’t sleep. I doubted I’d ever be able to sleep again with the excitement of what today would bring.
Jethro will tell me.
Finally, I would know.
Last night, I’d thought about reading the Weaver Journal to see how my mother and grandmother felt paying the Second Debt. Had they made note of it? Or were they like me and saw what the Journal was—a way to monitor our hearts and minds? I wanted to see if they’d done what I did: fall for their tormentors.
But despite my bouncing mind and infectious energy, my body grew stiffer by the moment.
It ached, it screamed, it needed to rest.
I’d returned from the dead.
Relearning to live again wasn’t easy.
I would have days of recovering ahead and it became painfully obvious when I went to stand. My shoulders cried from the simple motion of shoving my sheets away. My legs promptly went on strike as they touched the thick carpet.
I remained vertical for a brief moment, before face planting instead.
I didn’t walk anymore, I hobbled.
I didn’t talk, I croaked.
I wore bracelets of bruising around my wrists and ankles, and my skin retained its ghostly white, as if I hadn’t quite shed death’s grip.
No matter how alive I’d been with Jethro last night…today, I was paying for it.
I hadn’t wanted him to leave—not when he was blistering open and profound. I would’ve preferred to fall asleep in his embrace. But I knew that, regardless of our alliance to one another, his family was still in charge. Things had to go on as if nothing had changed—even though everything had.
My stomach rumbled, adding another discomfort on top of all the rest.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.
After a slow shower and an even slower time of getting dressed, I headed to the door, hissing between my teeth with every step.
I wouldn’t permit my body to steal my plans for today. Jethro was taking me away. He would talk. Nothing would destroy that.
Perhaps it could wait until tomorrow.
The thought of returning to the softness of my mattress almost made me turn around.
No!