Page 29 of The Chosen

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“So. Fucking. Good,” he ground out, driving into me with each word until he stilled, jerking through his own release.

Then he collapsed on top of me and nuzzled my neck, the only sound in the room that of our ragged breaths.

I didn’t make any move to push him off me. And he didn’t make any move to release me either.

We simply stayed in this moment, savoring in each other. In our connection.

And our love.

Maybe it was because we needed to feel this connection.

Maybe it was because the past few days had finally caught up to us.

Or maybe it was because somewhere deep down we both sensed the fragile peace of this moment wouldn’t last.

I didn’t know the reason.

But in the days to come, when the world shifted again, tilting everything on its axis, I’d return to this moment.

To the way Henry held me like I was the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

To the way he looked at me like I wasn’t broken.

To the way he loved me.

And I would hold on to it with everything I had.

It would be the only thing to help me survive the horrors I was about to face.

Chapter Nine

Henry

The Atlantic stretched endlessly beyond the wall of glass surrounding me, all blue and gold now that the sun had climbed past the horizon.

It was still surreal that Ariana was upstairs.

In my bed.

In the house I’d bought for the sole purpose of getting revenge on her husband.

Her ex-husband.

When I first planned to make Victor pay for what he’d done, I never imagined I’d come to have feelings for Ariana.

That I’d fall in love with her.

But that wasn’t what kept me up all night.

Instead, every time I closed my eyes, I saw Blake’s face… The flicker in his expression when I’d said Sarah was “chosen”. It was subtle, almost imperceptible.

But I’d built a career on noticing things other people missed.

Despite Ariana’s insistence I was simply looking for someone else to hate now that Victor was gone, the unease in my gut wouldn’t let it go.

So I’d given up on sleep and came downstairs to do some digging.

I started with Blake, even though I knew I wouldn’t find anything.

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