Page 38 of Luna's Forgotten Vow

But he tilts my chin gently, forcing me to look in his eyes and like a dam inside me is broken, tears burst forth, ugly and uncontrollable.

"Can't...I can't..." A hiccup. "I can't take it. It...it hurts."

His arms pull me off the ground effortlessly and I bury my face against his chest, because it is safe. He is safe. He is whole and solid and strong. Unlike me, unlike the fragments of my soul that seem to be scattered across different parts of my world, forever lost, forever hidden.

Fingers slip up and down the nape of my neck in soothing lines before traveling into my hair and scraping lightly. "I'm sorry," Soren says.

He apologizes a lot. Like what's happened to me is his fault. Like if it were within his reach, he'd ensure I never had to go through any of this. And I don't doubt it.

My tears wet the lapel of his dark gray jacket. "I..." I pause. It's usually easy to tell Soren the things I dream of. But recently, I have kept them to myself. Not because I don't trust him, but it is difficult to explain what my dreams entail. "I'm not sure I want to remember anymore. All it does is bring me pain."

"You would be okay with not knowing?" Soren's voice is a deep rumble against my ears and I don't step away when his thumb strokes the small of my back.

Would I be okay with never finding out? I think of everything I've acquired in the last few months. A family. Wealth. A means to a better future. I pull back only to meet Soren's lazy green eyes that study mine and it's not at all a lie when I say, "The present isn't so terrible that I'd do anything to return to the unknown."

A corner of his lips rises and I let his thumb wipe the last of my tears from under my eyes. "By the present, you mean?"

He's great at that. Helping me forget. Distracting me.

From gentle soothing, his touch grows curious, insistent, traveling over the silk, feeling the curve of my waist through the material.

I am reminded of my chest pushed flush against his torso and our thighs touching. A roughened thumb draws a curve along my jaw and I struggle to remember the initial question as heattravels up my legs. "Landon," I start. There's a hitch to my breath.

"Just Landon?"

The feelings his adept hands create are so visceral, my heart explodes in my stomach. "A-and Eric. And..." I lose brain cells when his thumb strokes my bottom lip. "...Lilia. I've never had friends before."

"And me?" Another stroke and a heady scent fills the air. "What are we doing, Seraphina? An arrangement? Friendship? Marriage? A distraction?" My eyelids flutter at the last word because his pupils have dilated as he stares intently at my mouth. "Ah. I see. A mere distraction."

I want to tell him that it's not true. But doing that would mean facing the truth of what he actually is to me. And something in me is too frightened for that.

Soren's eyes track mine and he sees it before I can hide it. "What are you afraid of?"

Many things. I've been scared of way too many things since before I can remember. Since I was little. Betrayal, vulnerability, helplessness, worthlessness, failing the one person who meant the world to me. But there were the big three that followed me wherever I went, that hung on my shoulders heavily.

The fear of entrapment. Abandonment. And being attracted and attached to the very thing that could break me.

Soren scares me because I have grown attached to him, whether I wanted to or not.

I don't tell him any of that. No. Being a fucking masochist, I seek to break and ruin the moment by speaking of somethingelse. Something less arousing and more disturbing. "I have been having dreams of Landon's father."

I feel the tension in his muscles but he doesn't pull away. Must not be jarring enough. I stare at the skies over his shoulder. They're clear tonight, my eyes tracing each constellation as I blurt bullshit. "In these dreams, he?—"

"Touches you?" He exhales a slow laugh, no more than a puff of breath. "You wound me deeply if you think that's enough to get me to lay off your back." He moves, not entirely a step forward, but we're closer than before and I can feel his strong heartbeat clash against mine. "If you wish to pretend I never said those things at the hospital, then it is quite alright. If you cannot care for me, then use me, Seraphina. If that is the only way I can be useful to you, I'll take it."

My underbelly clamps tightly. "This isn't right, Soren," I tell him, but I don't push him away. "All I've done is take from you. I'm not completely sure I'll ever not owe you."

His fingers clamp down on the back of my neck. "Not entirely true," he whispers, voice husky. "And even if it were, I'm too far gone to care if you take everything I own."

I start to find another excuse. Do I remind him of the contract? How close I am to actually leaving? But...I don't want to leave anymore. And that is the last thing I want to talk about right now.

Not that I get to make the decision anyway, because Soren's hand slides down my side, lifts my right leg through the slit of my dress and hooks it around his. I gasp when he twists me and plants me on the dangerously high railing. "What if I?—"

The force of his lips crashing into mine nearly knocks me over and into the air. My heart detonates in such wild fear at the thought of falling again, but I am held single-handedly by an anchor. By Soren's fist on my neck.

And it does something to me.

Knowing that he has the power to hurt me but won't do it. Knowing that I am dangling on the edge of a precipice, a second away from death, again, but I have never been safer in my life.

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