a distant memory but don’t forget—”
I attempt to jerk out of his grasp for the third time, but he holds me still.
“You will always be that one for me,” he whispers. “Nothing will ever compare to how much you mean to me.”
Tears burn the back of my eyes as I peer up at him. His blues glaze over in a watery enamel full of so much admiration and, dare I say, love that I feel like I’m choking in his hold. My body starts to tremble as I try to hold down the sob that threatens to free itself.
I won’t survive this.
There would be no way that I’d be able to handle the death of my best friend and the man that I’m starting to fall for.
That I am in love with.
“Please,” I whimper. “Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m doing it for you. And I don’t regret this, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. I regret nothing when it comes to you. Right down to everything that has happened, I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant being able to spend this time with you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I sneer. “You want me to be okay with this?”
“I know you won’t be, Blood,” he consents. “But I want you to respect it.”
“No, I won’t respect it.”
“You have to because it’s going to happen. And you’re going to do it.” I’m out of his clutches and backing away from him.
“You must be the most ludicrous idiot I have ever met in my life,” I shrill off a broken exhale. “You want me to kill you?” He nods. As though it’d be the most simplest thing to do. That it wouldn’t matter that he’d assassinate everything that lives inside me.
“I’m not killing anyone,” I snarl in a low menace tone. “I will not—” He’s on me again, wrapping an arm around my waist and brushing a traitorous tear from my cheek.
Lowering his face, he breathes me in, closing his eyes to rest his forehead against mine. “Do you love me?”
I break down, my whole frame shaking in his hold as a fractured sob fleets from my lips.
I feel myself disconnect from my body. It can’t handle the reality he’s trying to lay out in front of me. My mind won’t soak or accept it as being the only way for my sisters and I to make it out of this.
Dagen lifts me into the air and guides us deeper into the lagoon, stopping when the water reaches the top of his shoulders. I can’t meet anything else but his eyes that bore into me with contentment and acceptance.
“Don’t do this,” I beg, wrapping my arms tighter around his neck. “Please.”
He tries to smile but falls flat. “I have to, it’s the only way to keep you alive, baby.”
I open my mouth, but nothing aside from wrecked inhales and exhales make their way out. He hugs me, pressing a lingering kiss to my neck and moving up my jawline to my cheek. When he makes it to the corner of my lips, he pulls his head away to study my face.
“I love you,” he decrees. “I love you more than anything in this universe. More than myself, more than life, more than any circumstances or outcome. You are my world, Blood. I will never forget you, even in eternal sleep, you’ll always be my dream.”
Claiming my mouth again, his lips give into everything that we both share.
The happy moments of us laying together in my bed.
The angry ones when I killed his men right in front of him.
The desired memories of bliss when he filled me and lavished my body with kisses and his mouth.
And now our last one that we’ll ever spend together.
Lowering our bodies underneath the water, he continues to kiss me, gently and filled with every amount of love that he has for me. I feel it in every brush of our lips and every ounce of air I take from him.
He takes us deeper, not bothering to come up for air as he breaks away from me, opening his eyes to take a last look at me.
I’ll never forget the glint in his blue eyes or the structure of his face. I’ll never be able to erase how he made me feel and how much I wanted what he did.
A life of happiness and forever.
Pulling me back into him, our lips meet again, more shakily this time, and I know he’s losing the