"That doesn't erase what I've done."
"No. But it shows who you are now." I reached up, my hand cupping his face. He went still. "You're not the weapon the Alliance made you. You're not the assassin who followed orders without question. You're the man who turned himself in. Who accepted punishment. Who's trying to be better."
"I killed younglings, Merrilee." His voice was barely a whisper. "How do I come back from that?"
"I don't know." I was honest with him. "Maybe you don't. Maybe that's something you carry forever. But it doesn't mean you're damned."
"I don't deserve—"
"Stop." My thumb brushed across his cheekbone. "You're here. You're fighting. You're protecting me. That matters."
His hand came up, covering mine. "You should be afraid of me."
"I'm not."
"You should be."
"But I'm not." I leaned closer. "I trust you, Ahrick. With my life. With everything."
His breathing changed. Got heavier.
"Merrilee—"
I kissed him.
Because words weren't enough anymore.
Because he was drowning in his own guilt and I needed him to know—tofeel—that I saw him. Not the monster he thought he was. Not the weapon the Alliance forged. Not the killer haunted by the blood on his hands.
I sawhim.
The man who'd fought for me in that arena even when his body was breaking. Who'd looked at me like I was something precious when everyone else in this hellhole saw me as currency.
So I kissed him.
Because he needed to understand that I wasn't some naive girl who didn't grasp what he'd done. I heard him. I understood. And I was choosing him anyway—not because I was broken or desperate or too damaged to know better, but because beneath all that guilt and self-loathing was a man worth knowing.
And maybe I was selfish. Maybe I needed this too—needed to feel something real and raw and alive in a place designed to strip away everything decent. Needed to prove that Declan hadn't destroyed my ability to trust, to want, tochoose.
It was tentative at first. Testing. My lips brushing against his, feeling the heat of him, the sharp intake of breath when our mouths met.
For a moment he didn't move. Didn't respond.
Then something broke loose inside him.
A faint groan escaped his throat and his hand slid into my hair—not gently, but with a desperation that bordered on violence—and he pulled me closer even as his whole body went rigid with conflict. I felt the tremor run through him, felt the way his muscles locked up like he was fighting himself, fighting the need to touch me against the certainty that he shouldn't.
But he couldn't stop.
His mouth crashed against mine with a hunger that stole my breath, hot and demanding, and his tongue slid against mine like he was drowning and I was air. I opened for him without hesitation, and the sound he made—low and broken and desperate—vibrated through my chest.
God, he tasted good. Like something wild and dangerous and utterly intoxicating.
His other hand found my waist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and I felt the war in his touch—the way he gripped me like I might disappear, like he needed proof I was real, but his whole body was shaking with the effort of holding back. Of not taking more than he thought he deserved.
I pressed closer, my hands finding his chest, and the feel of him beneath my palms made my breath catch. Hard muscle and heat and the rapid hammering of his heart. My fingers traced the landscape of scars—raised lines and puckered tissuethat told stories of violence and survival—and he shuddered under my touch.
The kiss deepened. Grew desperate.
