Kael
I was barely holding myself together.
Every part of me wanted to melt into her, to take and take until I was drunk on her again. But I couldn't. Not now. Not when she looked like a breath too harsh might break her. So I held myself back, every muscle pulled taut, every emotion boiling under my skin.
And then she started apologizing.
Not once. Not twice. Over and over, the words spilling out between shaky breaths, her voice breaking as her shoulders trembled. She was sobbing mid-apology, telling me how cruel she'd been, how she pushed me away again and again because she couldn't stand not being in control.
I froze.
Aria, my Aria, the stubborn, fiery, maddening woman who never cracked, who never let the world see her bleed, was crying in front of me. Not hiding it. Not stuffing it down until she turned cold. No, this time she was unraveling right here in my arms, and it was undoing me in ways I didn't even know I could be undone.
