Page 194 of Ripe

His eyes close.

For a moment, he just stands there, breathing through whatever war is happening inside him.

Then he shakes his head.

“I won’t let it use you to finish what I started.”

My throat tightens. “Ezra.”

“No.”

His eyes open, and whatever I was about to say disappears.

Because he’s afraid.

I’ve seen Ezra angry. I’ve watched him face dead women crawling from the Earth, roots tearing through stone, and a Harvest that has kept him trapped here for centuries.

None of that put this look on his face.

This fear has nothing to do with the Harvest.

It’s me.

Or maybe it’s what he feels when he looks at me.

“I watched her disappear into that ground,” he says, his voice roughening. “I listened to Mercy scream my name while the Earth pulled her under, and I couldn’t fucking save her.”

He swallows hard. “She kept screaming until there was nothing left to hear.”

My eyes burn.

“And now every time I look at you…”

He stops. His jaw locks so tightly I can see the muscle jump.

“Every time you look at me, what?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Sage.”

“No.” I take a step closer. “You don’t get to stop there. Every time you look at me, what?”

His jaw trembles.

Actually fucking trembles.

“Ezra.”

His eyes finally meet mine. “Every time I look at you, I want something I have no fucking right to want.”

Everything else falls away.

Rhett.

Malakai.