Page 142 of The Shadows Between Us
In an unusual bit of clumsiness, he drops a letter onto the floor and scoops down to retrieve it. “You never read this. I started it right after the night I read Orrin’s letter to you. I realized that words can be so hard to find when spoken aloud in the moment. But writing? It gives me the time to articulate just what I feel. I was too much of a coward to read it to you before. But I’m going to now.
“My Alessandra,
“All the poets in all the world could write odes to your beauty. You are lovely, stunningly beautiful. Even a fool could see it.
“But that is not what drew me to you. It was your eyes. It was the way you didn’t look at me that made me realize you are special. You didn’t look at me like I was a king, someone to be respected and worshipped. You looked on me as a man. A man who says foolish things and makes terrible decisions. You made me remember what it is to be human.
“I’d forgotten. Having spent a full year with no one to touch, no one to talk to—it was you who reminded me what it is to live.
“Your eyes spoke of a mind that loves to tease and loves to win. But they also showed me your heart, one that could be so reserved but ready to love if I could only earn it.
“I haven’t earned it. I will never earn it. I could spend a million years trying to worship you, and I still wouldn’t be worthy of you.
“But I’m desperate for you all the same. And though I will not have millennia to live, I want to give however many years I have left to you. Because I love you. I love the woman who saved me. And though she doesn’t need me, I want her. Fiercely.
“All the time in the world is worth nothing if I don’t get to spend it with you.
“Forever yours, Kallias.”
When done reading, Kallias folds the letter back up methodically, taking his time, scared to look up, I think.
“Why did it take you so long to come see me?” I ask, keeping the emotion from my voice.
He shrugs and laughs uncomfortably. “I was a mess. I thought I might have a better chance of you taking me back if my face weren’t all beat up.”
I let a hand slide against one cheek, resting my palm there. “I couldn’t care less how your face looks.”
I feel the pull of muscle as his lips twitch. “No?”
“I do like it when it’s healthy and beautiful, but it is not why I love you.”
His breath hitches as he says, “The money and power help, too.”
“It is what originally caught my interest, but I lose interest in everything sooner or later. Everything save you. Because in you, I found my match. In you, I found my equal.”
Kallias, my Shadow King, grabs me, pulls me into his arms. “I love you, Alessandra. What can I say to make you forgive me and take me back?”
“Words only mean so much. Actions speak far louder, don’t you think?”
“I do.”
He lowers his head, brushes my lips with his.
And we start our new life together. Never to be alone again.
