The Summer King Bundle 3 Stories - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,143

I took seemed to go nowhere.

“It means you are…you are my strength. My sun. You are my heart.”

My entire body jolted.

“You are also my greatest weakness,” he continued. “It is not an object or anything tangible. It is the source of my power and my weakness. Through you, complete and utter control of me is possible. That is what mortuus means. There was only one before you. That was Siobhan.”

I drew back, shaking my head. “I don’t understand. How is that possible? You…” I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat.

“I love you.”

Those three words were like a bomb.

And Caden wasn’t done. “I love you, and that is why you’re my mortuus. My everything.”

“You love me?” Happiness I didn’t know I could even experience rushed through me in a wave that left my skin tingling. Then it was squeezed too tightly by the grips of reality, turning my entire being numb. “How can you love me? You’re engaged—”

“Not anymore. I broke the engagement before I even knew you disappeared.”

“What?” Thunderstruck, I stared at him.

“When we were together, that wasn’t planned. You know that. I wouldn’t have set out to sleep with you while still marrying Tatiana, but I…I wanted you. I’ve wanted you from the first time I saw you. Before I even knew you. And I don’t know why. Our elders say—” He cut himself off. “That doesn’t matter. My duty is to take a Queen of my kind, but that isn’t right. It’s not what I want, and it would not be fair to Tatiana. To marry her when I love and want another.”

My heart was pounding so fast, I feared it would come out of my chest.

“I thought I could go through with it. That I could keep you away. I tried. The moment I became King, I tried, and I failed. Obviously.” His eyes closed. “I knew what you were to me. Not when I saved you after Aric’s attack that night years ago, but not too long after that. I watched you, watched you heal and then hunt. From afar, I saw you grow braver and stronger, and I admired you. I respected you. I…knew after I found you in that club, pretending to be someone else.”

Oh.

Oh, wow.

“But I also knew that if Aric or Neal or any of my enemies realized that you were my mortuus, you’d be at constant risk.” His gaze held mine. “I thought it was best to marry Tatiana and keep you safe.”

His words came back to me. You’re a distraction. A weakness that I will not allow to be exploited.

I’d thought he meant that I was nothing more than a distraction that could be exploited, not what he was saying.

“That’s all I was trying to do, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t go through with it, being with someone else and knowing that you’d eventually find another. I’m too selfish for that. I couldn’t do it. I broke the engagement and then went to you. You weren’t home, and you didn’t come home. That’s when Ivy reached out to say that no one had heard from you.”

“You…you told me that you needed a Queen of your kind and that what we did was a mistake. You said it was nothing. All of that was a lie?”

“It was,” he said quietly.

“Do you have any idea how much that hurt me? How much that sliced into me because I—” I cut myself off. “If it wouldn’t hurt me so much, I’d totally punch you in the throat right now.”

“I’d deserve it. I hurt you. I thought it was the lesser of two evils. I was wrong.”

“You were so wrong.” My hands curled into fists. “Because Aric figured out anyway. There was…” Something tugged at the fringes of my memory. “I don’t know… I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing you need to say.” Caden leaned forward, his eyes snagging mine. “Not right now.”

But there was. Because, damn it, I was tired of lies. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”

A half-grin appeared. “I know.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I can sense it.” His grin turned to a smile that took a little of my breath away. “I could feel it.”

I snapped my mouth shut, blowing air through my nose. “But you hurt me, Caden. You hurt me twice now, and I’m just supposed to be okay with that? Take that risk again?”

Sadness crept into his gaze, and his smile faded. “I know. I don’t expect you to be okay with it. Not