He presses a kiss to the crown of my head. “You were happy with him.”
I purse my lips. “So you shot him.”
His grip tightens, pulling me closer, melding me to him as if to fuse us together.
Zloban
I wanted to kill him the second she laid eyes on him and approved the way he looked. And I would have, if someone else had called him there to meet her.
But I realised my mistake the second he made her blush. I grabbed my Horizon and reached the rooftop. I setup, sighted the restaurant, and found it disturbingly easy to keep him in my crosshairs.
With every smile she gave him my resolve to shoot hardened, when he made her giggle I squeezed the trigger. And I missed, for the first time in my life I missed my mark because my Dove was so impossibly close to him. One mishap and I would have lost my life.
I pull her into me to feel her breathe against my chest.
I’d only managed to pull the trigger once, blinded by rage. But the jealousy and burn evaporated the instant the bullet left Horizon. The bullet traveled three kilometres in the air, taking three and a half seconds to reach its target, and during that stretch, my heart skipped into a hollow rhythm, caught in a suspended, blackened void. It didn’t truly resume even when the bullet hit the wall behind them and fell to the ground, because he was pressing her down and I thought she’d been hit. I felt the surreal experience of dying while still breathing. My hands haven’t stopped shaking since, not until I held her just now.
That’s why I hate losing control of my emotions, and I never lose that control except where she’s concerned. Only she can snap my rigorously engineered restraint.
“Why are you sitting on the floor?” she asks.
“I don’t like mattresses when I’m not calm.”
She rubs the side of my waist, trying to calm me, but I’m already calm. The moment her fingers touch my skin all the tension vanishes from me.
I unwrap one arm from around her and slide it beneath her thighs, lifting her up into my arms as I rise. I sit on the bed with her still cradled against me, then lower us down without releasing her for even a second.
She shifts back slightly to look at me through the darkness.
“Zoan… will you answer me honestly if I ask you something?”
I nod.
“Do you love me?”
I nod again without a flicker of hesitation.
She smiles faintly. “Do you love me because I’m your sister?” Her face scrunches at the end of the question. I want to turn on the light to see her expression more clearly, but I know I wouldn’t want to witness every nuance that crosses her face.
I shake my head.
She tightens her hold around my waist. “Do you love me the way a man loves a woman?”
I nod.
“Will you marry me?” she asks, her voice edged with nervousness.
I shake my head and close my eyes. I can’t bear to see the look on her face.
“Why, Zoan? You know I love you, and not like a brother. I want to marry you.”
The hurt and vulnerability in her voice pierce through my bones.
I open my eyes. “I’m your brother to the entire world, Dove. No one will accept our relationship.”
“You care about the world but not me,” her voice breaks.
I cup her face in my palm. “I don’t care about anyone more than I care about you. But tell me, will you truly be able to bear the consequences of it?”
