Page 260 of Untamed

Tears spill down her cheeks, and this time she doesn’t try to hide them. “So that’s it?” she whispers, voice hollow. “You go into the dark, and I just sit somewhere safe and wait to see if you come back in a fucking box? I can’t do that, Ares. I’ll lose my fucking mind.” She shakes her head, tears falling freely now.

My chest caves in.

“I can’t lose you,” she whispers.

“Ehi,” I murmur, brushing my thumb along her jaw, soft where everything else in me is steel. “Calmati, amore mio.”

A quivering breath pushes past her lips. “I’m already lost in you, Jordyn,” I rasp. “You own me. You fucking own me, and it terrifies me how deep I’ve fallen. I can’t think straight when you’re near. I can’t sleep unless I know you’re breathing next to me. I’m crazy about you, bambina. And that’s exactly why I have to do this.”

She tries to speak, but I kiss her instead. Hard. Desperate. Like it might be the last time. Her hands curl into my shirt, gripping me like she’s trying to hold my soul in place.

When I pull back, I rest my forehead to hers, swallowing the crack in my voice. “Let me do this. Let me protect you the only way I know how.”

Her breath hitches, and I feel the shudder of it run through her whole body.

“Don’t...don’t ask me to be okay with this,” she whispers.

“I’m not asking,” I murmur, brushing my thumb under her eye where a tear clings. “I’m begging you to trust me.” I offer her a crooked smirk, trying to soothe her panic with what little charm I have left. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? Why doyou think they call meIl Mietitore? I don’t die easy. Plenty have tried. I’ve buried every one of them.”

She shakes her head, backing away like distance might change the truth. But I close the space between us again, wrapping my arms around her like armour.

“You’re not invincible, Ares,” she breathes, eyes searching mine. “You pretend like you are, like nothing can touch you, but I see it. I see how much you bleed.”

Those six words tear through me with more force than a bullet.

I hold her face between my palms, forcing her to look at me. “Maybe I’m not invincible,” I admit, voice low, rough. “But I have to be, for you. I can’t afford to fall, Jordyn. Not when they’re circling like vultures. Not when they already tried to take you once.”

Her brow furrows, fresh tears slipping down her cheeks. I lower my head until our foreheads touch, her breath trembling against my skin.

“You don’t get it,” I murmur. “If anything happens to you, I won’t just burn the world, I’ll fucking become the flame. And there’ll be nothing left of me to come back.”

Her hands slide up my chest, fists curling into my shirt like she’s trying to anchor us both. “Then don’t give them the chance,” she pleads. “Stay with me. We can leave it all behind, Sicily, the name, the war. The goddamn throne. Please, don’t do this to me.”

I close my eyes, jaw gritted tight. God, how I wish that were possible.

“If that were a possibility, do you think I would hesitate? I was born in blood, Jordyn. I can’t walk away from it. And even if I could, they’d never stop hunting us.”

I pull back enough to see her, to carve every gorgeous feature into my mind.

“But I can make sure they never touch you again. That’s why I’m doing this, bambina.”

Her voice is barely a whisper. “I don’t want you to. I can’t even think about my life without you in it.”

“You won’t have to,” I murmur, pressing my lips to her forehead. “Because I’m coming back for you. No matter what it takes. No matter how many bodies I have to climb over.”

I tilt her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes, my lips grazing hers with every word.

“But if I don’t… if this is the last night I ever hold you, then I need to know you’re out there breathing, even if I’m not.”

Jordyn’s lips tremble as she chokes out a sob, and this time, I let her fall apart in my arms. Because I need to remember how it feels.

Because by tomorrow morning, she’ll be gone.

And I’ll be the fucking ghost hunting what’s left of my enemies in the dark.

Off the leash...until Nicolai is dust.

Jordyn’s tucked against me, her breath steady where her head rests on my chest. One of her legs tangled with mine, her fingers splayed over my ribs. Now and then, her thumb strokes my skin, slow and absent, like she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it.

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