Page 32 of Roar Me Like You Mean It
The sound of that name spilling from her mouth in a voice so fragile snaps something raw inside me. The lion surges, claws scraping, a growl vibrating in my throat so low it shakes the glass on her table. I force it down, but it takes everything I have not to let the shift take me fully, not to tear the world apart until nothing remains but silence.
I cross the room in two strides and drop to my knees beside her. Her skin is clammy, sweat damp across her temple, her chest rising in short, sharp breaths. I slide an arm beneath her shoulders and lift her into me, her head falling against my chest, her hair tangling in the fabric of my shirt. She feels too light, too breakable, and I hate it.
“Jennifer.” My voice is rough, quieter than I mean it to be. “Come back.”
Her body jerks once, her lips parting as though she’s about to speak again, but only a whimper escapes. I hold her tighter, my hand sliding across her back in a motion that is meant to soothe her even though nothing about me has ever been gentle. My heart is hammering, not from battle, but from fear. Fear that I’ve walked into a fight I don’t know how to win.
She gasps suddenly, her body arching, and then collapses limp against me, her breath ragged but real, her pulse fluttering against my chest. Relief rips through me, sharp and consuming, and I bury my face against her hair, inhaling her scent as though it’s the only thing anchoring me.
“You are not his,” I whisper, the words pulled out of me without thought. “You will never be his.”
For too long I stay like that, kneeling on her floor with her clutched in my arms, the papers scattered around us whispering with the breeze from the half-open window. Eventually, she stirs. Her eyes flutter open, still glazed, confusion written across every line of her face. She tilts her head back, meeting my gaze, and for a moment neither of us speaks.
Her voice is hoarse when it finally comes. “You came.”
I huff out something that isn’t quite a laugh. “You keep saying that as if I ever had a choice.”
She frowns faintly, her hand lifting, trembling as it presses against my chest. The contact burns through me like fire. Her fingers curl into my shirt, as though she’s trying to make sure I’m solid, that I’m not another vision, another trick.
“Roman,” she whispers again, and this time it isn’t fear but fury in her tone. “I saw him. I saw what he’s building.”
I stiffen. My jaw clenches so hard it aches, and for a heartbeat I think the lion will tear free, the rage boiling too close to the surface. But then she shifts in my arms, her body pressing closer, and something else takes hold.
The realization I’ve been fighting, the truth I’ve tried to drown in steel and blood, crashes over me like a tide. I cannot fight this anymore.
She’s mine.
The bond is already threading through my blood, through my bones, pulling me to her in a way that has nothing to do with reason and everything to do with fate. I’ve denied it, resisted it, told myself it would cost me everything I swore to protect—but holding her now, feeling her heartbeat against mine, I know the cost means nothing.
I brush damp hair back from her face, my fingers lingering against her cheek longer than they should. Her skin is hot beneath my touch, her eyes still hazy but locked on mine.
“You shouldn’t have seen what you did,” I murmur, my voice rough. “But if Roman is already reaching into you, then there’s no hiding it anymore. The visions… they’re part of what you are.”
Her breath catches, her brow furrowing. “What I am?”
I don’t answer. She’s too raw, too shaken. Instead, I shift her carefully, sliding one arm beneath her knees, lifting her as though she weighs nothing. She lets out a soft protest, but her arms go around my neck anyway, her body settling against mine in a way that feels too right.
I carry her to the couch, lower her onto the cushions, and crouch beside her. For once, I don’t rise. I stay, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath, close enough that she can see every truth in my face if she chooses to look.
“I won’t let him touch you,” I say finally, the promise low, dangerous. “Not while I still breathe.”
Her lips part, and there’s no argument in her eyes. Just trust. Just fire banked low, waiting.
The lion inside me settles, not fully, but enough that I can breathe without rage choking me. I take her hand, bring it to my mouth, press my lips against her knuckles. The gesture feels strange on me, but right, like I’ve been waiting centuries to do it.
“You are mine,” I whisper against her skin, the words a vow as much to myself as to her.
She exhales shakily, her fingers curling tighter against me.
I don’t feel like a king or a weapon or a shadow of an oath. I feel like a man, one who has found what he was never meant to have, and who will tear the world apart before he lets it be taken away.
22
JENNIFER
My head is still ringing, a dull ache behind my eyes from whatever that was. His hand is warm around mine, his thumb tracing a slow, deliberate line across my knuckles. The gesture is so at odds with the man who breaks bones for a living that I can’t look away from it.
“You saw him,” Malek says. It isn’t a question.
