Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
I’m crying.
No, I’m sobbing. Big, ugly sobs that rack my entire body. That make it very hard for me to stand on my two feet and not crumple to the ground. So I guess it’s a good thing that he takes me in his arms. I know I told him to stay all the way over there, but then again, I wasn’t expecting him to say all those things. I wasn’t expecting him to say he loves me too. Not only that, but to tell me I’m that girl for him. The girl I so badly wanted to be all this time. His one and only, the one he’d want to rope to his side for life and not just for a few weeks.
But it’s all a waste, isn’t it? Because this would never work between us.
“Shh,” he goes, squeezing his arms around me, plastering me to his body as he rocks me. “It’s okay, Princess. I’ve got you.”
I fist his shirt and burrow my face in his chest as I shake my head. “Y-you’re not a monster.”
His chest flexes as he keeps rocking me side to side. “Okay.”
“I mean it,” I insist, twisting my fists in his shirt because I know he only said it to appease me.
“Shh,” he goes again, his palms stroking my back. “Just breathe, yeah?”
“No,” I snap and burrow even deeper into his chest. “You’re not a monster. I am.”
He goes still at my proclamation, and I clench my eyes shut. Then he wraps my braid around his wrist and tugs my head back. It’s not rough but it’s not gentle either, his action. It’s firm, much like his features and voice as he asks, “What?”
I swallow, looking up at him. “You were right to leave that night. It’ll never work between us.”
His jaw flexes as he asks, “Why?”
I study him for a few seconds before confessing, “Because don’t you see there’s a reason why the past has had such a hold on you? Because it’s that bloody. It’s that inescapable. It’s everywhere. It wasn’t an accident, you know that, right? He tried to kill your sister, my dad. And then he forced her to go away, kept you apart for years and years, just because he’s that evil. And I know how that feels. How your sister felt. I know. Because he did the same to me.”
My breaths hiccup at just the thought of what his sister must’ve gone through, how alone she must’ve felt. We talked for hours in that room and she told me about her life in the convent. She didn’t make it sound awfully lonely, but I could read between the lines. Because I’ve led that life, too, where I pretended everything was okay when I was dying inside. And it made me realize how naive I’ve been. How could I even think that something like this, what my father did, could ever go away? How could I expect Radisson to not only move on but to also build a life with me, with the daughter of a monster?
“He did the same to me,” I repeat, a tear flowing down my cheek, making his chest shake with an angry breath. “And as if that wasn’t enough, he came up with a plan to use it. To use all of it against you for his precious land. And I’m his daughter. I’m a monster’s daughter, Radisson, a monster who took so much from you. So if anyone’s a monster between the two of us, it’s me; and I don’t think it could ever work between us.”
He watches me for a few beats, his features harsh, his eyes glimmering. Then, squeezing his arms around me, he goes, “It’s not your fault. That you think that. It’s mine.” I frown and open my mouth to object, but he keeps going, “Threw the past in your face so many times, you think you can’t escape it. You think I can’t escape it either. Been really good at convincin’ you of that, haven’t I? So I won’t try to convince you of the opposite. Instead, I’ll show you. I’ll show you that we’ll work. We’ll more than fuckin’ work; we’ll fit. Like we always have.”
I blush because I know what he means. “I didn’t—”
“’Cause we’re fate, you and I,” he says, or more like vows. “And no one, least of all your piece-of-shit daddy, will win and keep us apart.”
“I—”
“But I will say this,” he keeps going. “I am a monster. Not because of what your father did to me but because of what I’m gonna do to him. And what I’m gonna do to that cockroach Anderson. And every other motherfucker out there who dares to hurt you. Today, tomorrow, and every single day until the end of time. ’Cause I realized being a monster ain’t my flaw, darlin’, not when it’s to protect the girl I love. So I’d happily let him come out and play if my Princess is threatened. You’re what makes me human, and I don’t mind bein’ a monster for you.”