Page 51 of Rhaz's Redemption
“Why would you keep the star when you don’t want to be with me?” I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice by sounding angry, but I wasn’t sure I’d been very successful. Even I could hear the raw pain in my words.
“I do want to be with you,” Rhaz claimed with an expression of pain on his face.
“No you don’t!” I shouted, and despite my anger and my rage, Rhaz didn’t take a step back. Instead his expression grew stern and he took a step forward and lift my chin in his hand so my eyes met his gaze.
“I do want you,” he seethed. “I want you so badly it hurts.”
I slapped his hand away and remarked, “you didn’t want me before.”
“I was a fool before,” he shot back.
“Oh yeah? What changed? What makes you less of a fool now?”
“I thought I was cursed before,” he admitted. “It wasn’t until I confronted my sire that I realized I’m nothing like him.”
“I told you that you weren’t like him,” I hissed.
“I know,” he scowled. “And I should have listened.”
That made me pause. I hadn’t been expecting him to agree with me, but I wasn’t done arguing yet. Not by a long shot.
“Yes, you should have.”
The pained expression returned to Rhaz’s face and he confessed, “I’m so sorry, Beatrice. I said things I shouldn’t have, and I hurt you in ways that I never intended.”
He slowly lifted his hand to my face and I didn’t move away. I should move. I should hold onto my anger, but there was a part of me that longed to be touched, to be seen, so I didn’t move.
His hand gently cupped my cheek and he looked deep into my eyes. “You are everything to me. I made a mistake before, but I wish to make myself worthy of you now.”
I turned away from his touch. “You only feel that way because we luminesced. You don’t have to like me just because fate brought us together.”
“I liked you long before that, my bright light. I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you. That first night we found you all huddled together in Orus’s den, I’ve wanted you.”
I swallowed hard. That was a powerful confession.
“You made it look so easy to deny me.”
“It wasn’t. I can assure you that. You told me I’d regret every word I said, and I do. You also said I’d beg for forgiveness and that’s what I’m doing now.”
Rhaz got onto his knees before me, and all the breath I had wooshed out of my lungs.
“Please let me try again,” Rhaz pleaded. “Let me make myself worthy of you, worthy of your light and your darkness, your beauty and your thorns. All of you, every bit.”
I was speechless. I was still so angry, but now I was also…I don’t know. It was like my heart was made of ice and even though Rhaz was a beautiful intense flame, my heart would not thaw. I wanted this. I knew I did. In my head this was a dream come true, but my emotions just weren't there yet.
I felt a chip of my icy heart begin to melt and I reached out to brush my finger lightly along his right horn. Rhaz shuddered and I melted a little bit more.
“I would like to try again,” I admitted. The words felt distant but true. I wanted to try. It might take me a while to process what I was feeling, but eventually we might meet in the middle. Rhaz’s intense flame and my cold heart might one day become one.
Chapter 22
Rhaz
It was a start. The first step in righting my many wrongs with Beatrice.
The rest of the day went by smoothly. Beatrice kept looking at me as if she didn’t know what to make of my earlier confession, but that was fine. Soon she’d see the depths to which I’d go to make her happy.
That night she put her stones over the fire and placed them in between her furs to keep her warm, and this morning I’d offered to make her breakfast.
