Page 166 of Aftershock
“Then do me too,” I mumble as I fight to stay conscious. “I’m just as obsessed with you. I need to prove myself too. I want your name on my skin. Do it.”
“No.” His eyes snap to mine, fire burning within them. “I’ll never use a knife on you. I’ll die a thousand times before I do.”
His unhinged words of assurance are the last thing I hear before my body gives out.
Everything goes dark. Silent.
Lonely.
Alaric, my soul screams.
No one answers.
35
ALARIC
The new marks I carved into my skin hours ago don’t ache nearly as much as being away from Lilith does.
It’s only been ten minutes since I left her to run a trial or two on Fraser. Ten minutes, and I already feel the fragile grip I’ve had on my sanity slipping.
It’s like my thoughts can’t stop circling back to her. Each one twists my heart, bruising my chest, refusing to let go.
They’re what pulled me out of the storage unit before I even set foot inside. What drove me across the hall and into the elevator.
And now my thumb crushes the button for the thirtieth floor like I can force it to move faster.
I miss her.
I need her.
I’m sofucking lost.
A light tremble courses through my hands, the anticipation to touch her as strong as ever.
My heart, it doesn’tjustbeat. It wounds me with every single thump, and I know, I just know that…
I deserve this for disappointing her.
Up until yesterday, I’d been Lilith’s hero. I’d been her lover.
I’d been someone she could count on.
Then she came face-to-face with my secret life in the worst possible way.
Even if she knew before yesterday, knowing and seeing are two different things. It had to have been a shock. Not the kind of shock a person gets over in a day.
That’s why every reassurance she’s given me has sounded like a lie. A manipulation.
Not because she’s a conniving person. Because her survival instincts spoke for her.
The elevator goes up, up, up.
The pounding in my head is killing me.
When she cried for me, when she passed out this morning, I was this close to jamming the knife between my ribs and being done with it.
Done with her pain. With forcing her into a life as the girlfriend and later wife of a murderer.
