“Don’t. Don’t push me right now, my endling.”
She tilts her head to the side with the smallest smile on her lips.
“How did you come up with that nickname?”
My fists clench and my breathing levels the longer I stare at her, waiting for her to ask and push the subject she really wants to. After a full minute, she still doesn’t speak.
“That’s what you want to talk about?”
“For now, yes.”
For now.
Hopefully, this confession distracts her from any other conversation.
“Your first night here, when I went to meet Derivius, he called you his little troublling. I made the comment that it’s not like him to give cute pet names to his puppets. He said we aren’t his puppets, but he gives us all cute nicknames behind our backs. No doubt a habit he passed right to Riven.”
She snorts and my shoulders relax a fraction.
“Then the next morning, you called me little troublling. Your way of scaring me.”
“My intention wasn’t to scare you, but to let you know I knew you were hiding your relationship with him. That nickname is pretty unforgettable, so I knew calling you that, you’d understand I knew more than I was saying.”
“You’ve always known more than you led on.” Her smile is replaced with pure sass. “So what, you turned his teasing nickname into one of your own?”
“Something like that. I was planning on just calling you little troublling anytime you sassed or pissed me off. Valories know you caused trouble for my soul, but I decided against that.”
“Why?”
I bite my lip and let my gaze roam across her.
She’s made herself right at home in the center of my bed with her legs crossed. Her fingers are twisting my black comforter, wrinkling it to hell and back. At least she kicked her shoes off before climbing up there.
She’s as content and comfortable as she can be in my space.
Same as her soul.
“Because how could I look at you like you’re trouble when your soul is so sweet and pure, nestled inside my chest like that’s exactly where it belongs. You have no idea how bright it shines next to mine.”
I take a small step toward her.
“I grew obsessed with the light it radiates long before I ever let mine anywhere near it. I was petrified my darkness would smother it out, but I soon realized, something I didn’t know how to accept.”
My jaw tightens as I fight both my body’s and my soul’s need to go to her. It doesn’t help that her gaze is begging me closer.
“Where my taint ends is where your light begins.”
My calculated strides toward her have her chest rising and falling. She doesn’t fight me at all when I bend forward and grip her by her ankles.
Her body glides to the edge of my bed with ease and I tangle my hand in her hair at the nape of her neck.
“The only trouble your soul has truly caused me is by making mine obsessed. It surrounds yours because it knows—just as I know—that you are the place it stops unraveling. The place the black spot stops spreading.”
I tilt her head back and my gaze flicks to her lips, then back to her eyes.
“I couldn’t call you little troublling, even to taunt you. You are the beginning of everything I thought I’d never have and the ending of the worst parts of me…You are my endling.”
Our mouths and souls collide.
