Page 342 of Scarlet Wars
His tone softened, but his gaze only darkened. “Chooseto belong to me.”
His intensity burned through me, so raw, so consuming my legs nearly buckled. It was as if he could see straight into the parts of me I tried to keep hidden, the ones that craved what he was offering.
“Caden, please…” I whispered, equal parts terrified and desperate to hear him say it again.
“Belong to me, Emma,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a near whisper, each word a command that curled through my veins and set me alight. “Like I belong toyou.”
My breath hitched. My heart slammed into my ribs so hard it hurt.
“But the future?—”
“Fuck the future,” Caden growled. “Choose me.”
I swallowed hard, my heart pounding against my ribs as I battled the instinct to push back, to fight him, to fight myself.
“I can’t,” I whispered, trembling but resolute.
His expression hardened instantly. “Why the hell not?”
“Because you die if I do!” The words tore out of me. “You fuckingdieif I choose you.”
Caden stilled for a single second.
Then he moved.
His hands were steady and firm when he grabbed my face, wiping the near tears with his thumb with almost painful tenderness. “I don’t care, Thompson, do you hear me? I don’t fucking care. I’d rather live a short life with you, than not live at all.”
I shook my head as I shoved him off me. “You’d be dead because ofmychoice.”
“Then let it bemine,” he growled. “Let me choose this, let me chooseyou. Let me chooseus.”
I nearly broke as I took a step back. “Caden, you’re the one price I could never pay.”
He shook his head once, jaw tight. “You’re scared?—”
“Well, can you blame me?” I shouted, the words ripping out of me before I could stop them. My hands came up in a helpless gesture, despair lacing every syllable. “The thought of losing you steals every single inch of air from my lungs, Caden. Do you have any idea what that feels like? I can’t fucking breathe?—”
My chest heaved, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
In one stride, he closed the distance.
Caden grabbed my face between his hands again, forcing me to look at him.
“You think I don’t know what that feels like?”
His voice dropped, rougher now. “You think I haven’t been choking on that same fear?”
His eyes were dark as he leaned closer, unguarded in a way I’d almost never seen. “Fuck, Emma, you have no idea what you mean to me.”
His grip tightened slightly. “I used to think you’d ruined me.” A beat. “But I was wrong.”
One of his hands slid from my face to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair as if he needed the contact. “You didn’truinme.”
His forehead pressed to mine, grounding, claiming. “Yourewroteme.”
He pulled back enough to look at me again. “You took me apart piece by piece and rebuilt me from the wreckage—no mercy, no shortcuts—until I didn’t recognize the man staring back anymore. You made me new, Emma.”
His touch lingered at my cheekbones.
