Page 126 of Cruel Deception
I nodded, heart pounding, unable to lie.
He picked it up.
I stumbled back. “Cassian...”
He walked toward me, the spider crawling over his fingers. My spine pressed against the wall.
“Face it,” he said, voice low. “If you want to be mine... if you want to stand in my fire... then face the thing that breaks you.”
I was shaking. “Please don’t make me—”
“You looked into my pain,” he whispered, stepping closer. “Now look into yours.”
And then—he pressed the spider against my arm.
I screamed. Reflexively. But I didn’t run. I didn’t swat it off.
I closed my eyes.
I stood still.
Its legs crawled up my skin—horrifying, ticklish, maddening. I sobbed, gasping, but I didn’t crumble.
I let it crawl.
When he finally took it away, I dropped to my knees. Breathless. Shaking. But still intact.
“I didn’t break,” I whispered.
“No,” he murmured, kneeling beside me. “You didn’t.”
He helped me up from my knees.
His hand came to my face—slow, almost hesitant. His thumb brushed my cheek, featherlight, as if testing whether I’d flinch. Ididn’t. Couldn’t. Our faces were inches apart now, caught in the hush of something neither of us had ever truly known.
“You were never weak, Charlotte,” he said, his voice gravel and ash. “You just didn’t know how strong you were.”
Tears blurred my vision again, but they didn’t fall.
“And you were never heartless,” I whispered. “You just didn’t know anyone could love you after what you survived.”
He froze.
Like those words pierced something he’d buried deep and sealed shut. His throat worked as he swallowed, and for a moment, he just stared at me—like I was something fragile he didn’t know how to hold.
Then slowly, his hand slid to the back of my neck—not possessive, not punishing. Just steady. Grounded. Pulling me in like a tide I could never resist.
Not to claim.
To come home.
His lips brushed mine. Soft. Reverent. A touch that didn’t demand or devour but surrendered—like every fractured part of him was reaching through the cracks for warmth. For something real.
It wasn’t just a kiss.
It was the moment everything stopped burning.
I breathed him in like oxygen after drowning. My fingers tangled in his hair. My body melted into his. And his arms wrapped around me—not to bind, not to control—but to hold. Steady. Certain.
