To us.
I’ve watched her try to fix herself in a hundred different ways. None of them worked.
But when will she come to understand that nothing about her needs fixing?
My grip tightens for a second—just enough. Her breath stutters in her sleep, a soft, broken sound slipping past her lips.
I still. Listening. Feeling it.
God, I love that.
The way her body responds without her permission. The way I can interrupt something as simple as her breathing, and she yields to it without ever waking.
My thumb shifts slightly against her pulse. Steady. Alive.
Mine.
“What are you dreaming about?” I murmur, more to myself than to her.
It doesn’t matter.
It will, soon enough.
Because eventually, there won’t be a version of her that doesn’t lead back to me. There won’t be a thought, a want, a need that I don’t already know.
My little poison. My misfit. My stray.
She just doesn’t realize it yet.
A faint smile touches my mouth, slow and wrong.
Because she will.
She already is. Learning. Softening. Turning toward me without even understanding why.
Exactly the way she’s supposed to. Exactly the way I knew she would.
Because she’s mine, after all.
And soon, there won’t be anything left of her that isn’t.
CHAPTER 57
IVY
“Igot this for you,” Soren smiles, handing me a box with a baby pink satin bow wrapped neatly around it.
“What is it?” I ask, turning it over in my hands. It gives no clue to its contents. Just a cube, elegant and discreet. Kind of like Soren, in a way.
I untie the bow and it falls away.
I lift the lid.
Inside is a jeweled object. Round at the top, sparkly. It’s like an over-sized ring. A Blow-Pop. But made of metal.
I pull it out. The underside is bulbous.
I gasp. I’ve only seen these online before. Maybe in the odd video. I blush at the thought. “Is this what I think it is?”