wrapped around her, and his warm breath on her face made her want to close her eyes and sink into his body.
“The second I saw you, Gabby, I knew you were her.”
“Her?” Maybe if she acted obtuse, he’d get frustrated and give up. Yeah, right. This was the guy who ignored every blunt rejection she’d given him. He wasn’t giving up any time soon, if ever.
“My soul bonded,” Liam continued, completely oblivious of the inner turmoil building in her. “You need me.”
She snorted. “Vain much?”
“And I need you,” he said, ignoring her words. “You don’t have to acknowledge it for it to be true.”
“Just because you feel a certain way, doesn’t make it true, either,” Gabby challenged.
“I agree, but this isn’t just a feeling, Gabby. It’s the truth. You were made for me, given to me by the goddess. You need my light, and I need your everything.”
Gabby shook her head and tried to tug her hand from his, but he refused to release her.
“You can feel it,” Liam said. “I know you can. I can see it in the way your body tenses every time I’m near. You are drawn to me. Your soul cries out for mine because you were made for me.”
He repeated the phrase he’d said a moment earlier, the one thing that had run across her skin like a dull razor blade because she knew there was no way it was true.
“I wasn’t made for anyone, Liam,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not even the people who brought me into this world. They made it perfectly clear I was a mistake. Now I’m just trying to do something positive in this damn world because otherwise I’m just taking up oxygen for those who are actually worthy of it.” She was practically yelling by the time she stopped speaking. Her breath was even more ragged than it had been when they’d been climbing up the mountain. Gabby suddenly felt drained. She wanted to crawl in a hole or jump into the volcano—that would work, too.
“Why the hell would you think those things?” Liam said. “You aren’t a mistake, dammit! You’re mine!”
“I’m no one’s!” she wailed back. “We are nothing,” she bellowed. “I’m sure as hell not yours!”
“Well I am yours, female! I. AM. YOURS!” His voice was so loud Gabby wondered if those at the bottom of the mountain had heard him. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he seemed to try to regain his composure. “I don’t give a damn what you say, beautiful. I am yours, and if that’s all we have for now then I can wait until you realize it and I prove it to you.
“Your parents sound like dicks. What they have said or done doesn’t matter. I will do everything I can to show you that whatever they told you wasn’t true. They were dirt beneath your feet and didn’t have the right to breathe the same air as you. If it were in my ability, I would bring them back from the grave and beat the shit out of them before I re-buried them, alive.”
Gabby was shaking by the time Liam stopped speaking. If he wasn’t holding her hands, she’d have been running full speed in the opposite direction. She could see the cracks forming in the wall she’d erected around herself, and it terrified her. There was a time in her life when she’d believed that she could somehow earn her parents love. If only she could be good enough. If she could be normal enough. If she could make them happy. But she was never enough in any way. Gabby had forever been a disappointment to them up until the day they died.
She’d gone to their funeral and been the only one there. It was that day she knew she would never be good enough for anyone’s love. The day she decided she would never allow anyone close enough to figure out she wasn’t enough.
She purposefully set out to keep everyone at arm's length because she refused to be hurt any more. If she wasn't good enough, fine. But she wasn’t going to be continually reminded of it the way she had been by her parents.
“Gabby.” Liam breathed out her name like a prayer.
She realized they were so close she could feel his heartbeat, and it was pounding fast and hard. What was she supposed to say? What did he expect her to say?
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said.
Crap. She’d said that out loud.