Page 108 of Secrets of the Brother
How could I make him understand?
That to me,hewas the real danger.
I clawed at his shirt. “Don’t do this to me, Enzo. Please. If you love me, let me go. I can’t be yours. Can’t you see that? You’ll swallow me whole.” I pounded my chest with my fist. “There will be nothing left of me.”
He lifted his head and turned away, avoiding my gaze.
I placed my hands on his cheeks and turned his head back to face me as I rose on my toes. “Enzo! Look at me.”
He stared down at me. His eyes cold emerald shards.
My hands shook as I pressed my palms to his jaw. “You win. Okay? You win.I love you.I’ve always loved you. But I can’tbewith you. Things get too dark… too twisted… too fucked up. Love shouldn’t be this hard.”
I pressed the top of my head against his chest and held back a sob as I clung to his suit jacket. “Love is supposed to be holding hands and going to the movies and having silly fights over dirty dishes in the sink.”
I looked up at his sharp, angular features. His mouth was set in a hard line. His brow lowered. There was a slight tic in his upper cheek as he stared silently down at me. He could have easily been a Roman centurion come to life, standing at the ready, just waiting for the command to strike a spear through my heart.
With his rigid expression, I couldn’t tell if I was getting through to him or not. I continued to plead, as if I were a prisoner kneeling on the gallows begging for their life to be spared. “Love isn’t murder plots and punishing sex in churches and secrets and lies and forced marriage and endless fights. Everything about us is toxic and messy and complicated.”
Now it’s “China”, the most heartbreaking song of all.
Drained, I fell against the cold bricks, dropping my arms to my sides.
I leaned my head back and squeezed my eyes shut as the tears fell. “Can’t you see? The universe is telling us…begging us… to run far away from each other, for our own salvation.”
My voice was hoarse from the cold air and my desperate pleading. I could only rasp my final entreaty. “Love isn’t always enough. Some things just aren’t meant to be.”
At first there was just silence.
Then….
My only warning was the crackling crunch of a dead leaf under his shoe.
CHAPTER28
ENZO
The deep, dark primeval woods were a fit setting.
All I could hear was a pounding battle cry with every beat of my heart.
With each denial she made, a piece of my humanity was ripped from my flesh until all that was left was blood, bone, and sinew.
I was no longer a man.
I was a beast.
A savage force intent on one thing and one thing only…claiming my mate.
Spearing my fingers into her hair, I yanked her body against mine as I pulled her head back.
“You don’t mean that, I would lose all hope. There would be no point in taking my next breath, knowing you were in the arms of another man suffering through such a pathetic, vapid excuse of an existence.”
Her already bruised lips fell open on a cry, but I didn’t want her mouth.
My gaze fell to her pale, vulnerable neck. I could see her rapid pulse, the fluttering of a bird’s wing as it beat against a cage.
“You, my sweet, innocent dark angel, were not meant to be loved on such weak terms.”
