Ruins of Chaos (Legacy of the Nine Realms #3) - Amelia Hutchins Page 0,154

I know you hate me, but more than that, you hate that you can’t hate me because there’s something between us that is fucking terrifyingly beautiful that neither of us knows how to accept. I know you think if we allow it to happen, everything will change, but nothing will. And it won’t matter how much we wish it to be otherwise. You fear letting down your walls because you’re the type of woman who will climb them to fix something so fucking broken that it isn’t worth fixing. You could spend lifetimes trying to put me back together only to find out that you can’t, but you wouldn’t admit defeat no matter how hopeless it seemed. I know wanting me is dangerous, but it doesn’t change that you do. Accepting that you want me will change everything you’ve been planning, and if you accept that, everything will have been for nothing.

“I know that this thing between us, whatever it is, frightens you because it’s visceral, and it digs deep, twisting everything in which you’re fighting. I know I want you, and you want me. I know that right here, right now, what we do won’t change anything. In the morning, we will still be enemies. Enemies who are both fighting on the same fucking side but standing opposite of one another. That alone makes you push me away because that is a betrayal that cuts deeper than you know how to handle. Being married to you wasn’t something I needed for this war, making me the biggest asshole in existence. I may not love you, Aria Karnavious, but I care enough to put my name on more than just your soul.”

I stared at him, knowing half of what he’d said had been about him more than me. He’d admitted things that we both felt, using me as the scapegoat to get them out without realizing they were about him. He’d said I was the type of girl to climb walls, but that wasn’t true. I was more like a wrecking ball trying to bring the walls down, which was why we were going at each other so hard. Knox had centuries of mortar up on those walls, and it wasn’t something you could just chip away. He built an entire rebellion to go against the witches. Hell, he’d been planning this war for five hundred years. I was challenging him. The fact that he wanted me, coupled with his need to keep me, was hurting him, but that wasn’t my fault, and that pissed him off the most.

“I am terrified right now,” I admitted sheepishly. Knox stood, narrowing his eyes on my shaking hands, moving to place his own on the table. He thought his words had scared me, but that hadn’t scared me at all.

“Because of what I just said?” He cocked his head to the side as if I’d caught him off guard with my words.

“No,” I whispered, placing my hands on the table, exhaling. “I’m terrified that you’ll find me changed once you enter me,” I murmured, fighting the pricking tears in my eyes. “I…we…you and I, we’ve not had sex since I was taken to the Kingdom of Unwanted Beasts.”

Knox exhaled slowly, staring before he moved to crouch in front of me. His hands turned me, and he peered into my eyes. “You don’t remember everything that happened to you, do you?”

“No,” I swallowed thickly, forcing my eyes anywhere but on him.

“I can assure you that no man or beast raped you. I’d have scented it on you, and I have only ever scented my arousal within you. My beast would know as well, and he has not taken control to mark you, nor gone after another male for placing his scent onto you, and I assure you, he would.”

Knox lifted his hands, capturing mine to stop the fidgeting. Exhaling, he lowered his head to hide the anger flashing in his eyes. I shook my head, searching for something to say.

“I should have said I was damaged before you wed me, right?”

He snorted, lifting his eyes to mine. Knox pulled me to my feet and brushed his mouth against my shoulder. His hands still held mine as he brought them up, kissing my knuckles, as tears slid free from the precarious hold I’d held on them.

“You’re not damaged, Aria. You were abused and terrorized by monsters. You got back up, and that’s the only thing that matters to me. You are stronger than you were,