Page 36 of Depraved

I can’t stop staring at his blue eye.

“You’re alive?” I choke out. “All these years, I thought… And you’re alive?!”

He grasps my hand before I can slap him again.

“Say it again.”

“You’re alive.” I hurl the words at him. “You let me think I killed you.”

“No, not that. Say my name.”

I narrow my eyes at him, anger warring with soul-deep relief.

“You were going to share me with Carter,” I accuse. “You betrayed me.”

He cups my nape, drawing me closer. “Never. I don’t know how he found out about us, but I would never share you. You’re my Karolina.”

I can’t suppress a shudder, and it’s not an involuntary reaction of disgust; the reverence with which he says my name is as intense as ever, even if his voice is a bit deeper now, gravellier with age.

How did I not recognize it before?

“You’ve been lying to me for years. Why should I believe you about this?”

Because I want to believe him so desperately that it scares me.

Here he is: changed, but whole and breathing.

Not dead.

I didn’t murder my first love.

I can’t help myself; I caress his face, tracing his high cheekbones and the granite outline of his square jaw. My fingers slip through the blood that oozes sluggishly from the cut on his forehead. He leans into my touch with a low groan.

I withdraw immediately. “I hurt you.”

He captures my hand and presses my palm to his blood-slicked cheek. “Don’t stop. Nothing you could do would hurt me. There’s nothing you could do that would ever make me leave you.”

He’s said it before as Rand.

It means so much more now.

Years of anguish weigh heavy on my heart.

The man I was coming to care for is actually the boy I’ve always loved. Even when I thought me betrayed me to Carter, I still loved the memory of him.

But he’s not just a memory. He’s not the same teenager he was back in our foster home, but he’s here with me now.

Solid and real and vital.

“Brandon.” His name leaves my lips on a shaky exhalation, a prayer for forgiveness.

He brackets my cheeks with both hands, and he tugs me closer. His lips descend on mine, taut with years of pain and longing.

The kiss is familiar, even though his lips are fuller than they used to be. I didn’t recognize him in our moments of passion in the last few weeks because it seemed impossible that he could’ve survived that gunshot to the face.

And I’ve never kissed anyone else. I didn’t know to discern a difference between the teenage boy who held me with harsh passion and my possessive, protective professor.

Here he is: both the same boy from my foster home and the same man I’ve come to know since moving to York.