I’m pushed up against a wall, my lungs and throat aching.
“What are you thinking?” Canto demands in a low voice. “Tell me, Mei, so I can kill it for you.”
I shake my head, not wanting to voice the words, but Canto starts to hum. It’s a low sound that works its way into me, and I open my mouth, and it all comes out.
“I don’t know how to be like you. You play, you laugh, you all fit together, and I am a half-dead witch with a monster chasing her. Everything I do is wrong. I can’t see, I can’t even feed myself. People fear me. I do everything wrong. I don’t fit.”
I clamp my hand to my mouth, cutting off the tirade.
“That was a dirty, dirty trick, Canto.”
Canto brushes his thumb over the spot at the base of my neck. My pulse flutters wildly.
Where has my confidence gone?
“You will fit in time. This world will be yours because I have never seen anyone more capable of survival than you. You are strong, Mei, not just in your body, but in your endurance, your willpower. You don’t need or rely on others, you are simplya titan all on your own. Stop letting that voice get its claws into you. You survived Deux, while blind, and you have thrived despite your injuries. Jeez, you even have the devotion of the Leviathan. You have the gratitude of the Sirens. And you have my respect as one warrior to another.”
He leans in slowly until his lips are pressed against my cheek. What would happen if I turned my head just so? I want to so badly.
He pulls back, but then he leans in again, and his lips touch mine. For a moment, it’s just a soft touch, a press of his soft lips to mine, but then he shifts, and he takes control, firm and confident. His hands tangle in my hair, and he tilts my head back. I open my mouth, and his tongue sweeps inside, stroking against mine, filling me with the taste of him.
He is so much better than I ever dreamed.
My fingers curl into his top, holding him close, refusing to let go. There is nothing uncertain or nervous about this alpha. Everything about him is skill. He’s kissing me because he wants to, and it’s not an accident.
It’s on purpose.
Because he respects me or because he wants me.
If I had eyes, I think I might cry.
He draws back and breaks our kiss far too soon.
“Do not let those voices in. You just remember that I think you are worthy of anything your heart desires.”
“And if what I desire is you?” I whisper.
He stills and then pulls away completely. “If I could…I would be yours, but it’s impossible.”
Disappointment crushes me.
He comes back, pressing his forehead against mine.
I see him snatched up as a child, taken to train in a war camp. His skill with the sword and bow was unrivaled. He excelled at everything he did. Rising higher through the ranks. I saw respectreplaced by fear in the eyes of the people around him. He was kidnapped again one night and taken to the dungeons where he was thrown in with Ronit. They knew of each other. And then they are swimming in the ocean, and I see myself sitting on the beach next to Lirin, saving him. I see myself sinking into the depths, and I feel the deep, deep regret that he felt in that moment.
He didn’t want me to die.
That thought changes everything.
Before I can think of something, before I can stop him, he’s gone. Like the tides stole him away, and I get the impression that I might never be able to get him back.
I slip back into the house, letting my nose lead me back to the kitchen where Ronit presses something warm and dense into my hand.
“What is it?”
“Bread roll with chicken, mayonnaise, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and salt and pepper.”
I shift my weight.
