Page 52 of Unnatural Fate
“What’s more important?” I asked, seeing him more clearly than I ever had.
“These moments. You chose me.”
“Yes.”
“I can feel it. You’re different,” he replied, keeping the hand between us while sliding his other around me.
I didn’t want to admit it. Or even know how. “Let’s go shower. We both need it.”
The sun rose as we climbed into bed. The blood and remnants from the night before had flowed down the drain, but the knowledge of how much we had ahead of us stuck to my soul.
The way Vin had taken care of me left me feeling like I didn’t deserve him, that I’d never live up to what he brought to the relationship. I’d run from him for too long to ever feel comfortable running with him.
I lay awake long after we came home. We’d showered and cleaned each other up. Mouths finding each other’s wounds. Whispered promises along with the aftercare. He promised to stand by me, and I promised myself to him, even if my days were numbered.
It broke me. I’d thought I’d loved Vinkettin before, but I was wrong. Merely a bond of souls, an infatuation I’d shared with him before. Last night, he’d taken care of me. Held me and let me crumble in his arms. All along, he had loved me more than I’d ever loved him, and he’d waited patiently for me to get there.I was there now.
I’d never dreamed of being enough for a person or even trying to be. But he made me want to be, and I didn’t know how to reconcile myself with the person I wanted to be for him. Or how it fit into my life.
Yesterday was terrible, but at the end of it, we were together in security and love. Would I spend the rest of my life expecting the other shoe to drop? Being raised in chaos made it impossible to function in calm. Chaos was my baseline. I didn’t know what to do with the calm he brought.
I brushed my fingers over his closed eyelids. The universe had sent me my perfect mate and then told me I couldn’t have him. The price would be death, and I felt it in my bones.
NINETEEN
DOMINIC
“Would you rather I flip you over and fuck you or leave you to brood over there?”
“Huh?” I glanced up from the report I’d been reading.
“You heard me.” Vin wet his lips with his tongue, staring me down.
Sometimes, I wished my vision wasn’t as good as it was. It would be so easy to ignore his expression and pretend his tone meant nothing if I couldn’t read it plain as day.
“Aren’t you fucked out? We had quite the excursion in the woods.” A full day later, my body was still healing from it and sore all over.
“I think I could get it up for you if it’s what you need to get your mind off things. Fucking you to sleep has always been one of my duties.”
“Duties?” I scoffed, acting offended. “You have duties now?”
“You always came to me when you couldn’t sleep. If you think I didn’t know, you’re wrong. And more than that, I knew you hated that I could take your mind off anything, but you still came. Ragged and sleep-deprived, half dead-looking on occasion, and then you’d drag yourself off to sleep at home, or when it was especially bad, you’d sleep in my arms for a few hours.” His words brought me back to some of those nights. “You might not have admitted it to yourself, but you’ve let me take care of you like that for years.”
We’d never talked about it, and I hated I’d been so transparent. I crossed the room to sit next to him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what, my love?”
I closed my eyes, tucking myself into his side. “For all the nights I left when my soul was screaming at me to stay.”
For hating him.
For driving him away because I was too cowardly to admit he was what I needed. For all those things and hundreds more.
But I didn’t add any of those things. I think he knew anyway.
“We are where we need to be now, Dominic. We will face tomorrow and the next day.”
Another night came and went, and I slept fitfully in Vin’s arms, the turmoil in my brain wreaking havoc on my sleep. I woke hours later to the smell of eggs. I reached out for Vin, but my bed was empty.