Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
Her eyes widen, but I have to push through.
This is it.
“I’ve only known cruelty. But in the end, I was the cruel one to take away your smile. The one thing that kept me alive. Breathing. Yearning. Hoping. When that smile vanished …” She sucks in a breath when I inch closer. “My soul vanished too.”
She shudders in place. “Ares …”
I look into those sparkling eyes, wondering if I could ever earn back that smile that has haunted me so.
I grab her hand, the one that holds the knife, and push it into my own abdomen. “You’ve taken ahold of my soul. Stolen it right out of my chest along with my heart. All that’s left of me is an empty vessel. I’m nothing but a ghost wandering through life, but I’m not the one who haunts. It is you. You have haunted me since the very first day I saw you, and I don’t want to let go until I’ve killed everyone who even so much as breathes in your direction.” I pause and watch her breathing pick up. “I am a man possessed. Possessed by the fantasy of owning this heart …” I push my fingertip into her chest, blood connecting with blood. “This heart that never wanted to be mine because of the pain I’ve put it through. This heart poisoned by my hatred. And no amount of pain my father inflicts on me compares to that kind of suffering.”
I sink to my knees in front of her, holding her wrist tightly so the knife is pushed into my neck. “So take your revenge, little rose, and end my suffering,” I murmur. “Please.”
“Ares, no!” Caleb shouts, and I throw him a glance.
“Don’t,” Blaine says, grabbing his arm. “Let him do this. I know it’s hard for you, but you have to let it happen.”
Caleb’s face contorts, but he finally gives up fighting the inevitable.
Crystal averts her gaze, but I want her to see me, the real me. “Look at me,” I say, forcing our eyes to find each other in our darkest moment. “He named me Ares because he wanted to raise a god. I was made to rule his fucking empire, and there is nothing in this world I would bend for, not even him … But I will for you.”
CRYSTAL
I try to breathe, but my lungs have never felt more constricted than they do now.
Ares is on his knees … for me … begging me to end his life, all because he’s made me hate him.
I can’t.
I can’t even move a muscle, let alone drive this knife farther into his skin.
Even though I’ve so desperately wanted to kill him all this time.
Ares didn’t murder my father. He took the blame and went through so much pain because of his death. Knowing what it would cost him, he still refused.
All those scars, layers upon layers, every decision he made, led him to anguish … Led him to me.
Knowing what I know now … How could I ever kill him?
“Blaine was right. You’ve managed to bring a god to his knees, little rose,” Ares says. “What does that make of you?”
He doesn’t release my wrist as he pushes it farther and farther into his neck.
His lip tips up into a cold smile. “A goddess.”
My whole body begins to shake as the knife pushes into his neck. The neck of the man I once thought I wanted to murder in cold blood. The man I swore would never break me.
But it’s too late.
The knife drops to the floor.
I grip Ares’s bloodied face with both hands and kiss him harder than I have ever kissed a man before, pouring out all my love into this soul that’s been crushed again and again until nothing was left of his heart but broken shards and dust. And with every kiss I can feel his heart rebuild itself piece by piece, his lips siphoning the life straight out of my mouth.
All this pain and suffering will end with me and with these kisses, chaining our hearts until eternity. Because this … this admission of him sacrificing his goddamn soul for my father has instantly unraveled every inch of my hatred and replaced it with adoration.
When my lips unlatch from his, there’s a moment of disbelief churning in his gray eyes, and I stare at him with equal bewilderment at my own desires finally coming to their right.
Suddenly, he grips my waist with both hands, smashing his lips onto mine as he comes to a stand while kissing me with such deliciously cruel lips I’m swept away. He lifts me up in his arms, our tongues still entangled, and he sets me down on his desk, swiping aside every important paper to kiss me so deeply I nearly melt away in his arms.
He’s never claimed me like this before, so impassioned, filled with unchained need and desire.