Rage and Ruin by Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,166

and my legs around his waist. I squeezed him as tight as my chest was squeezing and planted my face against his neck.

“I guess you like it.” His arms came around me.

“Like it?” My voice was muffled against his neck. “Like it? It’s perfect and amazing. It’s beautiful. I love it. It’s more.”

Zayne replied, but I don’t know what he said, because something happened. Something cracked inside me, splintered wide open, and a rush of emotion poured through so fast and so unexpectedly that I couldn’t stop it all from swelling up inside me.

It broke free in a sob that was part laugh. There were no walls. No stupid file cabinets. Nothing between me and everything I felt. Nothing between me and all that Zayne was.

Which was more.

So much more.

“Hey. Hey. Trin.” His hand curved around the nape of my neck, tangling in the loose braid. “It’s okay.”

It was.

It wasn’t.

Zayne carried me over to the bed and sat down with me in his lap, still clinging to him like a deranged spider monkey. My fingers curled along the edges of his hair, crushing the soft strands in my hands.

“Damn, Trin, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he murmured against the side of my head. “You just said that you missed the stars from your bedroom back home, and I wanted... I wanted to give you stars that you could see every night.”

Oh God. Oh God.

That made me cry harder, so much so that Zayne started rocking us as he rubbed a hand up and down my back, murmuring nonsensical words until I pulled it together, shifting so that my forehead rested on his shoulder.

“I know. I know you didn’t mean to make me cry. This isn’t your fault. I love the stars. I love that you did this. It’s just...” It was just that what he’d done was kind, sweet, thoughtful, beautiful and as meaningful as he was.

And it was just that I’d known he cared for me—that he liked me as more than just a friend—and I’d known he’d begun to feel all of that before the bond. And I’d known I cared for him, and that I had already been falling for him long before the previous night...but this was so much more.

“Trin?” He guided my head back, sliding his thumb along my bottom lip. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“I’m... I’m scared,” I admitted in a whisper.

His pale blue eyes sharpened. “Scared of what? Of me?”

“No. Never.” I drew in a shallow breath. “I’m scared of... I’m scared of us. I’m scared of what this means. I’m scared we’re not supposed to be this. I’m scared that I’ll lose you. I’m scared of how much I...how much I feel for you. I’m scared.”

Zayne’s chest rose with a deep breath against mine and then those thick lashes swept down, shielding his eyes. His fingers splayed against my cheek. “So am I.”

My body jerked. “You are?”

His hand curled around the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair. “You want to know the truth?”

Yes? No?

He took my silence as a yes. “It terrifies me. Every aspect of it, Trin. Feeling what I do for you, wanting what I want from you?” His voice was deep and rough, and it made me shiver. “There have been moments when I wished I felt this way about anyone other than you.”

Wait.

What?

I blinked. “Okay. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Hear me out.” His fingers tightened around my braid. “What I feel terrifies me, because I’m not supposed to feel this way and God knows I’ve already been down that road. Wasn’t exactly looking to repeat history.”

I clamped my mouth shut.

“But it’s more than that, Trin. It goes way beyond my past,” he went on, his gaze holding mine. “It’s because of who you are. You go out there every night and put your life on the line. You’re hunting the kind of demons that skilled Wardens dread. You’re looking for something that can kill demons and Wardens in seconds. I’m terrified of something happening to you, and that has nothing to do with what that means for me.”

Okay. I totally understood that. “You’re doing the same thing, Zayne. I can’t even think if something happened—” I cut myself off, not wanting to go down that road. “I wish you were a human who went to college and was studying to be a veterinarian.”

His brows lifted.

“Okay, maybe I don’t want you to be a human. Humans are too easy to kill, but