The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,189

palms against his cheeks. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

His pupils shone like bright stars. “Evie—”

“You have done monstrous things, but so has Daemon. So has his brother and half the people we know. So have I.” Dampness clung to my lashes. I stepped into him, until the heat of his body beat against mine. “You do care. I’ve seen the weight you carry, but I should’ve really seen it.”

Luc trembled as his hands folded around my wrists. He could do anything with his strength. Push me away. Hold me back. But the way he held my wrists felt as if he were holding me there. “I want to believe you. You have no idea.” His voice was thick with raw emotion. “But sometimes I think I was more of a success than Nancy Husher ever realized.”

“No.” I leaned into him, feeling him shudder. “If that were true, you couldn’t love me like you do. And that’s why you did what you needed to do. Not because of the Daedalus or because something is wrong with you but because I was the only thing you ever needed in your whole life.”

Another shudder rocked him as he lowered his head to mine. The tips of my fingers were wet from the tears, but not mine.

They were his.

“You’re a gift. You’ve always been the most precious gift life has ever handed me. Can I ever be worthy of that?” he whispered. “Of you?”

Tears had hit my cheeks now, and they were mine. “You already are, Luc. You’ve always been. We just all have a little bit of a monster inside of us. How could we not when we love someone like we do?”

“I love you, Evie. I fell in love with you within the first week I met you. I loved you before I even knew what that meant, and I loved you even when you were gone, and I loved you when you became someone else,” he said—pleaded, really. “And I fell even more in love with you when you walked through the doors of Foretoken. I’ve never stopped loving you. I never will.”

“I love you.” I closed my eyes, losing a breath and then two. “And every part of my heart and my soul belongs to you, Luc. You are a gift.”

I don’t know who made the first move, who kissed who, but our lips met, and everything—everything—was a heated, blinding rush that carried that edge of desperation that was always there. I’d tasted it in his kisses before, felt it in how he held me close at night. I tasted and felt them now as my back hit the door. It fed the greedy way our hands pushed and tore at clothing, the way his hands gripped my hips and lifted me. It was behind the near frenzied way his mouth moved against mine. I’d thought that it was from how close he’d come to losing me before, and I was sure that was a part of it, but I knew now it was also those scars hidden so deep within him.

It wasn’t the only thing that drove us to the floor and to what felt like the brink of death. It was the raw power of what we felt for each other. It was love, the kind that could level entire civilizations, the kind that could rebuild them. Love was the thunder in our hearts, the lightning in our veins, and it was what kept us together where we landed, even after our skin had begun to cool and our breaths had slowed.

We lay there, his head tucked under mine as I stared at the ceiling, smoothing my hand over and through his hair. I made myself a vow, and I hoped he heard it. I hoped he knew how deep it ran.

What I told him hadn’t healed the wounds that were in his soul. What we’d just done wasn’t a magic fix, either, but I now saw the wounds that were there, and I would do everything to heal them.

I’d do anything.

38

It was sometime later that I’d told Luc about Nate and what I’d seen when I’d followed him into the city. I wasn’t at all surprised when he’d sat up and leaned over me, his brows raised as he demanded to know if he’d heard me correctly. I had to repeat that yes, I’d gone with Nate into the city. As I’d expected, he wasn’t thrilled, and I didn’t think hearing that Grayson had followed me