The muscle in my neck twitched.
"Was this your plan all along? Marry me and then keep me in Maine, so I could what, come back and find you dead? What the actual fuck, Thayor?" she snapped.
Oh shit. She was using my big boy name now.
"Or should I say,Threx?"
Fuck that.
I reached for her, knowing she'd fight me until I got her where she belonged: caged and perfect between my ribs.
"No. The plan was to marry you and keep you forever. But the Underworld doesn't give a shit about my plans, pretty girl. I told you on that fucking beach. The world would never let us have this."
She pounded against my chest until whatever was left in her broke into me.
"How are you not sad? Or freaking the fuck out? Why didn't you stop him?"
I blinked, filling my lungs and letting the air settle into her.
"Sad? I am not sad, Daphne." I admitted. "I am angry. The only thing I feel is red, hot, fucking rage."
She breathed, digging her fingers into the center of my spine. But the pain did not bother me. I was happy to absorb it.
"And you forget, I have spent every moment of my life about to die. This is nothing new. And as for stopping Wolfe… It's his job to do what's right by the club. To keep you safe. How could I prevent him from doing that?"
She did not answer, and I let the silence stretch. This was a truth she had to explore in her body. That, and there was nothing I could do to make this easy for her.
"I hate all of this," she whimpered.
"Good," I breathed, trying like hell to pretend that life with me wouldn't always be this way. But it would. "You're supposed to."
Maybe it was fucked up, but I wanted to kiss her. Lift her by the ass and press her against the wall. Make her feel anything but the emotions she was drowning in.
I lifted her chin to meet my eyes.
"Do you regret marrying me?" I asked, keeping her caged.
Daphne's breath pulsed, crashing out in an erratic sputter.
"No." She ran her fingers along the slope of my neck until she found my hairline. "Never." She tugged me closer. "Yours. Always. I'm just afraid."
I knew she was. In all our talks of scary monsters and things that go bump in the night, she'd never known it beyond the fable. We warned her, and she smiled, but it hits differently when those realities become true.
"I love you, Thayor Milo Gavros," she murmured against my lips, her words brushing across my tongue, and I tasted their sweetness. The inevitable weight of them against my teeth. "And I guess I feel guilty that I am okay with only being yours. Even though I'll always love him."
And that's when she got it: the entire philosophy behind Wolfe's feelings stitching inside her chest. Wolfe never cared that she loved me, although he loved her. His ten was admitting it. Hers was accepting it. And we truly were all in this together. The cage. The beast. And the woman who made them.
Daphne's face tensed in realization while she pressed her hand to her ribs.
"Oh." She took a breath, clamping her eyelids shut… then opening them again, softly. "Oh no," she exhaled.
I let her break. Breathing around her. My room had felt empty without her in it, and though we were hiding in the dark, I wanted to keep her with me forever, in the calm, in the hush of this moment.
"Daphne." My fingers fell to her hips and slid over her ass. Her wild eyes met mine when I lifted her, the breath in her mouth breaking as I pulled her into my arms. "I am sorry you came all this way for Wolfe," I mumbled against her lips, gently pressing her back to the wall.
"I didn't," she breathed, rolling forward as my touch snaked along her waistband, yanking down her leggings just enough to get to her. "I was already on my way to…" Her mouth fell open when I slid aside the edge of her panties and placed myself at her entrance. "You. I was coming home toyou."
I ran my fingers through her hair and tugged, studying her eyes while she uttered the words. Damn, I needed to hear her say that. If it made me small, I didn't fucking care. There would always be a part of me that craved her entirely. Even in the uncertainty, I knew she was the only vessel capable of keeping me.