He held me for a long time. I felt his strength seep into my bones, mending the parts that had been broken. But the truth was too heavy for one person to carry. I pulled back, fearing what might happen if I kept him close. I had already risked too much by staying. He didn’t let me get far, just enough to look at him. This beautiful man, his hazel eyes molten. I wanted to remember him like this when I left.
“I don’t want to run anymore,” I said, my voice trembling.
He smoothed my hair away from my face.
“Then don’t,” he said.
“You don’t understand.” I put a hand on his chest, a final touch. “You don’t know what I’m bringing down on you. I don’t know what I thought. Going with you to the school. Sitting at that piano. Trying to act like I could have a real life.”
Menace’s eyes narrowed, focused. “Tell me what I don’t understand. What do you think you’re bringing down on me?”
I took a step back, everything aching.
He sat me next to him on the couch; the world reduced to the distance between us. He watched in silence as I tried to find words, words that would only hurt him.
“It’s more complicated than you think.”
“Try me.”
I drew a breath, every part of me tight.
His assurance would have been comforting if it hadn’t also been dangerous.
“My mother… I don’t know how she stands it. All of it. She begged me to be careful. Told me I needed to find my fate.”
“Looks like you found it.” Menace’s words were sharp and determined.
“Yes.” My voice cracked.
His fingers stopped drumming.
“I feel it too. But it gets worse.”
His voice was serious. “Tell me.”
“The man he promised me to is Dominic Madison.”
His face drained of all of its color. “The King of the Midwest?”
“And that’s why I said I cannot stay,” I barely whispered, tears streaming down my face.
“And I’m telling you, you’re staying.” He was emphatic.
The finality in his voice sent a shiver through me.
“He won’t let me go.”
“Neither will I.”
“But…”
“But what?”
I swallowed against the growing tightness in my throat. “He’ll never stop hunting for me. He made a deal with Dominic. When you saved me from that lab, I guess I just forgot. I felt something stronger than my father’s wrath the moment I first saw you. I think it was hope.”
“You’re staying.”
“You could die for this.” My voice was thin and desperate.
