lip lifted in a grimace. “Don’t even start that shit. You think I want this? You think this is what I dreamed of? The man I wanted to spend my life with?”
“Then refuse.”
“Refuse?” A barked laugh tore at my throat. “Like it’s so easy.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t make this sound as if it’s simple. I have nothing, Caden. Nothing.” When my father died, he didn’t have much besides a few trinkets that were sentimental but had no real value. “Without your parents taking me in, I would have been on the streets. Just another worker in the Savage Lands trying to survive off a loaf of bread.”
“It doesn’t mean they own you. Can trade you like cattle.”
“Would you say no if your father said you had to marry some Polish princess to secure Hungary?”
“Yes!”
I tilted my head, my gaze drilling into him. He huffed again, wiggling beneath the weight of his lie. He knew he wouldn’t have a choice either. Our duty, defending our country, the human race, was in our DNA.
“Brex…” My name came out a choked whisper, thick with despair and frustration.
The tears I fought earlier returned full force, blurring my vision. Overwhelmed with grief, anger, heartbreak, and passion, I couldn’t get my mouth to move, to tell him I’d been in love with him for so long. He was all I wanted and who I wished to grow old with.
“I don’t want you to marry him,” he said softly, his brown eyes finding mine.
“I don’t either.” I gulped over the lump in my throat. All I saw was misery before me. My tongue was sharp, my will too strong, but I wondered how long it would take before Sergiu broke it.
Caden watched me, his tongue sliding over his lip, drawing my gaze to his mouth. I wanted nothing more than to finally know what it felt like to taste him. To feel his lips on mine.
“Caden?” I bit my mouth. Despair waited for me downstairs. For one moment, I wanted to know pure happiness. To be able to think back to this when I wanted to escape and know I had one second of joy.
Leaning into him, the heat of his mouth was so close to mine. My heart hummed in my ears, making me forget all about the cold or grief.
Caden froze, not moving away, but not moving closer, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Brex, don’t.”
“Why?” Pain and desperation rang in the single word like a bell. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”
His chest moved violently up and down. “More than you know.”
“Then please, Caden.”
Agony flinched his cheek. “I can’t.”
Rejection filled my eyes, shattering my chest as if ice cracking open.
He grabbed my cheek, his warm palm cupping my face, his eyes wild and desperate.
“Fuck, Brex. This is torture. I want nothing more than to kiss you. To lay you down up here, amongst the stars, the world at our feet, and show you how much I want you. How I’ve wanted you for a long time.”
“What?” A gulped cry hiccupped up my throat. He had wanted me? I thought it was completely one-sided. I could only think about all the wasted time. Now it was almost too late.
“Gods, do you even know how beautiful you are? So breathtaking I can’t think properly when you are around.”
Really? He never acted like I interested him. “But—”
“That’s why I can’t.” Both his hands slid along my jaw, drawing me closer to him, his mouth skimming mine. “Because if I get a taste of you, I will never be able to let you go. And seeing you with Sergiu…it will destroy me.” He leaned his forehead into mine, torturing me with the proximity of his lips, his hot breath against my mouth.
“We’ll have the memory. I can carry it forever, getting me through the darkest of nights.” My hand drew up to his mouth, touching his lips. Begging. Needing. It felt like the one thing that would let me float above the woe.
He inhaled sharply, like I was breaking him down. His mouth skated over mine, landing on the corner of my lips, kissing me softly.
“I can’t. Kissing you, being with you, will destroy me. I must do the right thing.” He drew back, tearing my heart from my chest, gutting me, bleeding out my hope. “Ask anything else from me, and I will give it to you. But this I can’t. I won’t come back from it.”
I’d spent so many years hiding my emotions, but now a sob pushed out of