I step forward, slow, careful, but my voice is anything but soft.It’s a vow carved from fire.“They should have protected you.They should have seen your gift for what it was.Not tortured you.And definitely not tried to break you.”
She flinches at the venom in my tone, but I force myself to rein it in.I can’t let my fury frighten her, not when she’s already laid her scars bare.
“Do you think I’m broken?”she whispers, her voice strained and soft.
“You’re not broken, Harlow.”I lower myself, meeting her gaze head-on.“You never were.And I will spend the rest of my eternity proving that to you if that’s what it takes.”
Her lips part, trembling, like she doesn’t know whether to cry harder or laugh in disbelief.
I reach out but stop just shy of touching her.This has to be her choice.It will always be her choice.“You are free here.Walk the halls, run the grounds, go into town if you want.Scarlet or Kyson will go with you.Hell, I’ll go with you.You’ll never be locked away again, not while I breathe.”My voice drops lower, rougher.“All I ask is one thing: let me deal with the hunters first.Let me kill the threat before you try to go back to your old life.Because if you leave now, they’ll find you.They’ll use you to get to me.And I won’t risk losing you.”
Her chin trembles.The walls she’s built so carefully around herself flicker, cracks forming under the weight of everything between us.
I lean even closer.“And if, after it’s done, you want nothing to do with me?If you decide you don’t want this, don’t want me?”My chest aches as I force the words out.“Then I’ll let you go.No tricks.No cages.I won’t be another man who takes your freedom away.”
Silence stretches.Her breaths come shallow, shaky, her eyes wide and wet as they search mine.
I wait.I’d wait a century if I had to.Because this moment, this choice, belongs to her.
Chapter Eleven
Harlow
Truth In The Dark
So many feelings crashthrough me.It’s hard to isolate one.
He called it a gift.And the anger on his face, even as he watches me, is so palpable I feel as though I can reach out and touch it.I can practically taste it on my tongue.
But there’s something else, I realize.Something that rises with every second, mixing with the anger my story seemed to generate.Something that compels me to uncurl a bit and reach out until my fingers are brushing over the side of his handsome face, because it’s a keening cry I know too well.It’s fear.
I replay his words in my mind and stroke my fingers over his jaw.“Do these hunters scare you that much?”Are they what he’s afraid of?
Mateo’s lips lift with a flicker of bitter amusement, and he tilts his head until his nose brushes the heel of my palm.His nostrils flare as he draws a deep breath.“They’re dangerous, yes,” he says after a long moment.He reaches up and catches my hand, cradling it to his skin.“But they’re not what really scares me.”
I finally understand.Rather, I feel with a deeply ingrained certainty that I do, and while that itself is confusing, the clarity is ...something else altogether.Breathtaking.Dizzying.