Page 409 of Reign

She continues before I can speak.

“Seeing you like that. It should have made me afraid of you.”

“But it didn’t,” I say, meeting her eyes.

“No.”

Her voice is quieter now.

“Then what did it do?”

Color rises slowly beneath her cheeks.

“Elena.”

“Some part of me liked it.”

For a moment, I’m sure I misunderstood her.

“Liked what?”

“Seeing what you became because he touched me.”

The confession comes out barely above a whisper.

She looks ashamed of it.

That bothers me more than the words ever could.

“Elena—”

“I don’t mean Miguel.”

I listen.

“I need you to understand that. I don’t like that you shot someone who might have been innocent. I don’t think choosing me makes that right.”

“I understand to an extent.”

“But Felipe put his hands on me. He was going to take me.” Her eyes rise to mine again. “And then you were there.”

I hold myself perfectly still.

“I knew what seeing you kill him was supposed to make me feel. I knew I should look at you and see something horrible.”

Her breath catches.

“I can’t.”

“What do you see?”

“You.”

It’s only one word, but it enters every locked place inside me.

“I knew it was still you,” she says. “And some dark, terrible part of me liked knowing that was what touching me turned you into.”

I’ve spent my life believing there should be a line between the women I love and the violence I carry.