Page 114 of The Edge of Darkness

“It was about your power.”

My hand stalled, then continued. “Yes.”

“Tell me,” she said, catching my hand mid-air and folding hers into it.

I sighed as she threaded our fingers together. Her hand looked so small in mine. I could shatter every bone in it with a simple squeeze.

Was I capable of that? Yes. But I would never do it.

Not to her.

I closed my eyes, wiping the image from my mind, and the intrusive thoughts that came with it.

That didn’t stop my power, or my own existence, from feeling any less dangerous.

“Just another warped memory, courtesy of Ramil’s poison,” I finally said. “It’s always the same: my memories of war, or those that I care about getting taken from me in the worst way.”

“He preyed on your fears . . .”

I nodded, almost ashamed to admit that I had any fears at all. I was supposed to be the High Lord of Calledan—the one who invoked fear in others so they didn’t see my own.

Auren hadn’t feared me when she first found out who I was, though. Nor did she have any fear when she witnessed my shadowfire in the meadow in Elandrew. But when I killed those three guards in the dungeon cell . . .

I met her stare. There was no hint of fear now, but I would never forget the look she had given me in that cell. I’d beaten myself up over it ever since, because fear was something I never wanted to see on her perfect face, especially when it was from something of my own doing.

“I don’t fear much, Auren. But I am terrified of losing you.”

“Niall,” she whispered, squeezing my hand in her grip, “you won’t lose me.”

I let her words settle in my mind before I voiced the one thing I constantly asked myself. “Why is it that the gods would bless me with everything I could ever want, yet give me a power that is so dangerous, I could risk losing it all with one mistake?”

Her expression softened. “Because that is how greed is kept in check. If power is given with no restraint, and with nothing to lose, the one who wields it can become reckless.”

She made perfect sense. But she also didn’t know the extent of what I saw in my nightmares. How it was always me—my power—that was responsible for so much death and destruction. How it was her, and my Trium, who suffered the most.

I decided to look at it from a different perspective. “So, you’re saying my power is a blessing? To keep my ego from getting too big?”

“Exactly.” She grinned, briefly. Her face quickly fell into a frown again when I didn’t return the sentiment. “What else is wrong?”

I opened my hand and pressed my palm to hers, until our fingers were spread out flat against one another, giving me something to avert my eyes to as I voiced my other concern. “Knowing what you know about me . . . you’re still willing to . . . marry me?”

“Willing? Niall, I am more than willing. I want to marry you. I said yes because I can’t imagine my life without you. And no matter how many different ways you might convince yourself that you aren’t deserving of love, that will never stop me from wanting to be with you. Every dark, abandoned corner in the recesses of your mind, everything you might fault yourself for, I don’t. My deepest desire is to be yours. Always.”

Damn every insecurity and fear of mine. Damn it all to hell.

I reached for her face and crushed my mouth to hers in a searing kiss. Her fingers threaded through my hair, and she kissed me back just as deeply. Then she hummed against my mouth, and the sound sent a wave of arousal straight between my thighs like a perfectly aimed arrow.

I sat up, breaking the kiss as I shifted until I was fully above her. “I love you, Auren. You have no idea how much.”

Without giving her time to reply, I claimed her mouth again, pressing my body into hers and feeling her hips grind against mine in a tantalizing motion as she opened her legs for me.

I didn’t need any further invitation. I pushed the fabric of her nightdress up over her thighs, baring her to me, then, I dragged my cock up her center, feeling the heat and the wetness that was waiting. I’d never get tired of this—the feeling right before I entered her and lost myself to oblivion. It was a precipice I’d never be able to walk away from. She was my undoing. My greatest desire. The love that I would give my life for. And being inside her, pleasuring her . . .

My thoughts faded, narrowing to this one singular moment as I steadied myself and entered her. I slung my hips in slow, deep movements, filling her to the brim with each entry, devouring every sweet sound she made as she breathed them into my ear.

This wasn’t going to be one of those times where I drew things out—I wouldn’t last long. And from the way she was lifting her hips to meet mine, she didn’t want me to.

I gripped her face, her hair, slid my tongue between her lips, parting them so I could taste her, so I could be as deep in her as I could in every way possible. And when she shuddered beneath me, the walls of her core squeezing with each heartbeat, I came too, so hard and fast that chills spread down my body.