Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Why me?” I say, my voice feeble. “Why does this happen to me? Why did any of that have to happen to me—when—”
“Are you talking about Lune, Hunter?” Rayne says.
And my instinct is to say no.
But I think that the actual answer is yes.
My father’s abuse. My mother abandoning us.
And, always, losing the sister I loved so much.
“Who I’ve become,” I tell him, because I don’t know what else to say. “And everything that’s happened to me.”
I feel untethered, like I don’t even remember what normal means, anymore.
“You’ve been given a lot of shit you don’t deserve, Hunter,” Rayne says, furrowing his brow at me.
“What is fate trying to tell me? What does it fucking mean?”
“Nothing,” Rayne finally says, his eyes going wide. “Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything about you.”
The tears feel hot and unfamiliar when they fall down my cheeks
Tears of anger.
Tears of despair.
“What the fuck did I ever do to deserve any of it?”
He shakes his head.
He looks so hurt, and that’s what I want to prevent.
He shouldn’t be hurt.
I’m the one who should be.
“Nothing,” he repeats. “But just fucking listen to me. Listen to me when I’m trying to tell you something.”
“There’s nothing you can say,” I tell him in a broken whisper.
I’m shaking.
Everything is wrong. Maybe it always has been.
I feel like I’m dissolving, like I’m no longer in my own body, like nothing feels real.
Why are you so good to me?
“I see the spark in you, Hunter,” Rayne says.
“You shouldn’t be with me.”
He ignores my protest. “I see the spark in you, and I am going to be here. Every time. To pull you from the darkness.”
My throat goes tight.
And now the tears are falling again, but my anger vanishes, like a wisp of smoke in air.
“It’s going to consume me,” I say, my voice coming out shaky.
Rayne grips my arm.
Steadying me.
“Then I’ll rescue you,” he says firmly. “Again. And again. I’ll rescue you from the darkness.”
No one’s ever said anything like it to me.
And I don’t even know how to process it.
You shouldn’t love me.
No one as good as you should ever love me.
But even as I protest, as I defy his words, I know he means what he’s telling me.
There’s nothing I can do to push him away.
Nothing that could make him stop caring about me.
I pull in a breath of cool air. “Never should have let you touch me, Colson. Should have made that clear from the moment you kissed me.”
Because I don’t know how to handle real love.
Because you’re giving your soul to a monster.
“But instead, you liked it. You liked every moment with me. What’s so wrong with that?”
“You know what’s wrong.”
“No I don’t. Use your words. Talk to me,” he begs. “Communicate with something other than your knife, or your fists, or your goddamn cock in my throat—”
“I’m fucking falling for you,” I blurt out, feeling like a spark just became an inferno in me. “I don’t fall for anyone. I don’t let myself. And you go outside with me, give yourself to me, and ask if this is all just a favor? It’s not a favor. It’s a mistake I can’t stop making. And I know you’re just going to regret it. Regret me.”
He watches my eyes as it all comes spilling out of me.
I let him inside me long ago, but I’d been so careful not to let him in my head. Tried to protect him from entering my heart, and ruining his fucking life in the process.
Now it’s too late.
I feel sick. Dizzy.
Rayne cocks his head to one side, still silent, like he’s watching an animal behind glass at the zoo, trying to reach inside.
And you really, really shouldn’t be behind that glass.
“It’s a mask, isn’t it? There’s so much inside you. You act like you’re numb, and cold, and like you want to be alone. But it’s just a mask.”
It’s getting harder to breathe as I try to warn him off. “Rayne.”
“I don’t think I’ll regret a single thing about it.”
He takes a step closer suddenly, pulling my arm forward.
He isn’t trying to fight me.
Isn’t running away.
And when he wraps his arms around my shoulders, leaning in and hugging me tightly, all I can do is collapse into his arms.
The warm bulk of his body.
The affection he somehow gives me, even in the midst of chaos.
And I let go for the first time.
The press of Rayne’s lips is warm against the side of my head. He still fucking smells like sunscreen, even now, on the first snow day of the season, and that smell is comforting in a way that nothing ever has been before.
The first few buttons on the top of his shirt are undone, and from this close, I can see the edge of his tattoo along his collarbone.
Those wings that I love so much. Beautiful ink on his smooth skin that he put there to remind himself he’s free.