Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 111435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
“You knew, yet you didn’t say anything,” I whispered.
He nodded once.
I fought against the tears pressing at the back of my eyes. “Why?” I rasped. “Why when you knew—”
“When I knew that this, us, was eventually going to end?” he finished for me.
My stomach dropped. I couldn’t even entertain the thought of us ending.
“Because, Freya, I’m greedy. Because I wanted to take whatever fucking scraps of happiness I could get with you.” He grasped the back of my neck, yanking me forward until our foreheads touched.
I wanted to flinch away from him, to fight him, scream at him, but I knew that my time with him was draining quickly, and I had to hold on to what I had left. Even if that was like trying to hold water in my fist.
“Because I’m not a good fucking guy,” he hissed, his mouth inches from mine. “I knew it would ruin you. That I would ruin you, break your fucking heart. But I couldn’t stop myself. Because I want you to feel me for the rest of your life. I want you to wear my fucking scars into the future I know doesn’t involve me.”
There were a million things to say then. I wanted to scream at him. Curse him to hell for making me fall in love with him, for not leaving before he’d grown roots in me. But I knew better. Hades hadn’t had control over this either. This pull we had for each other. And even if he had, he wasn’t the good guy, he wasn’t going to do the noble thing and leave before he could do any permanent damage. He wanted that. He wanted me to wear the memory of him like he wore his tattoos.
So I didn’t scream. Didn’t curse. Didn’t kick him out.
I surged forward, wrapped my legs around his waist, and I kissed him. He caught my hips, holding me close, tugging at my hair as he kissed me back.
“Fuck me,” I demanded against his mouth. “Fuck me so hard that I forget.”
Hades fucked me. So hard that I forgot that we were over. That my life was in ruins now. That I’d wear him on my insides forever.
We were tangled up in each other hours later, covered in sweat, in pain. My breathing was rapid yet shallow, my heart thundering. All of my limbs were numb, my eyes heavy. Hades held me tight. Neither of us spoke. There was nothing left to say.
I hadn’t wanted to go to sleep. Hadn’t wanted to close my eyes while Hades was still here, while his arms were around me, while our scents intermingled. I didn’t want to have to open my eyes in a world where none of that would be anymore. But he’d exhausted me, perhaps for this very purpose. Because no matter how hard I fought it, sleep finally claimed me.
Hades was gone when I woke up.
Chapter Eighteen
Three Months Later
“You can’t leave,” Marilyn admonished, glaring at me while I packed my suitcase.
“I have to,” I grumbled, looking down at it. I was trying my best not to look around my room. At all the boxes piled up with the life that I’d thought was going to be so permanent here.
“What you have to do is tell him,” she argued.
My eyes snapped up, narrowing at her. “Tell him? So he can do what? Change his mind about something that he’s been certain about his entire life? So he can abandon the life he’d created for himself to have a long and happy life with me?” I shook my head. “Things would never work that way. Even if he tried to do the noble thing, which I doubt he’d do, he’d end up resenting me. He’d end up hating me.” I sucked in a breath. “I wouldn’t be able to handle that.”
“How are you going to handle this,” she waved her hand at me, at my body which betrayed no signs yet, though it would soon, “alone?”
“I’m not going to be alone,” I reminded her. “I’ll be with Aunt V.”
As soon as I’d found out, I’d called her, hysterical, which was rare for me. She’d been calm, quickly laying out a plan for us. She’d immediately asked me where I would want to be, where I’d feel safe. Of course, the only place I’d felt safe was here, in the arms of the man I loved. But I would never be in his arms again, and I couldn’t stay in this town knowing that.
We’d decided on Colorado. The mountains. The clear air. In the small town of Falcon Springs where I’d spent a couple of months before I’d moved here. It was pretty. Peaceful. Safe.
And my Aunt V, who hadn’t moved out of her hometown in sixty years, was preparing to pack up her house, her life, for me.