My pulse feels like there are a thousand birds taking flight within every vein, fluttering all over.
“You almost died,” he says again. “And I’ll never fucking forget how close it was. Just like I won’t waste any more time now that we’ve gotten a second chance. We can’t fight this anymore, Rissa. I’m claiming you as mine.”
I stare at him. Mouth opening and closing like a struggling fish. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t just…claim me!” I say shrilly.
“I just did.”
My back stiffens. “I am an independent woman. I decide who to be with.”
“You’ll decide to be with me.”
My teeth grind. “You cocky son of a bitch.”
“Andyours.”
“Mine?” I scoff and try to slap his hand away from my waist, but he pays the swat no mind, his touch still holding me. “What, you’re mine until we have a real argument one daythatactuallypisses you off, where you get to storm off as your big captain-of-the-army important self, leaving me here to wait while you go and find a saddle at a brothel house to fuck?”
His expression darkens. “No,” he growls. “I said I’m claiming you, and I mean it. You think I give a fuck if you argue with me? If you piss me off? You think I’d be such a piece of shit to go fuck someone else out of spite?”
“That’s what men do to their wives,” I spit. “Either after an argument or because they’re suddenly bored of them, or just because they can. I know, because I used tobeone of those saddles at a brothel house that they came to. I know exactly what men are like.”
“Those are weak men. You think I’m weak?”
My eyes drop down to his arms, all rippled with hardened muscle. I don’t even know when I started gripping them, but I know they’re keeping me balanced. Keeping me upright. And I also know no one could ever look at him and say he’s weak.
“I don’t know what to think,” I admit, shaking my head like I can clear it. I try to hold onto my defensive anger, but it slips off anyway. “I woke up and now all of this…”
He lifts a hand and gently smooths a strand of hair behind my ear, fingers barely brushing against my skin like he’s afraid he’ll scrape me. The gesture makes me want to cry. Makes me soften toward him even more. Then he pulls me forward until my head is resting against his shoulder and tucking me in.
Safe.
“I know, Yellow Bell,” he murmurs.
He smells of leather. Of trees. Of dirt and sweat and musk. He smells all man and I thought I’d hate that, but after years of scenting the pompous perfumes of prettified nobles, I prefer the natural rawness of it.
“I’m scared,” I whisper against his neck, fingers gripping his skin.
“I know that too.”
A tear slips from the corner of my eye and drips down his leather shirt. “You can’t love me,” I tell him, my voice full of denial.
“I can.”
No argument. No added detail. Just a vow.
“You don’t want me really,” I argue.
“I do.”
“You won’t always.”
“I will.”
I can, I do, I will.
His promises drum in my ears, and I want to trust them—trusthim—so desperately. He isn’t what I ever envisioned. He isn’t what I thought I wanted. But my heart aches at just the thought of him suddenly not being here. Of him not wanting me anymore. The thought of leaving now, of finding some remote part of Orea to live alone, makes my stomach churn. I can’t bear it.
How did that happen?
