Page 165 of Lured By Shadows

Not even close.

I felt haunted by everything he’d confessed, by the blood and violence and choices hanging between us like smoke I couldn’t clear away. And yet beneath all of it, something else wrapped quietly around my fear.

Something close to comfort. Culver was my comfort.

Something that steadied me when I wasn’t sure I could remain standing on my own.

“The memories of them will still haunt me, Culv,” I whispered, unable to hide the fragility cracking through my voice. “But I get it. At least some of it. I may never fully understand where you come from, but I know you were trynna set things right in your own way.”

He didn’t answer with words. He kissed me instead. Slowly. Gently.

Not hungry or demanding, but devastatingly careful, like he was terrified of cracking something fragile between us.

And I melted into it without thinking, a quiet sound slipping from my throat as relief loosened its crushing grip around my chest. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed something soft after all of this. Just the reassurance and sweetness of I’m here. I’m not leaving you.

I clung to the kiss and let it remind me that no matter how much darkness lived in his blood, he was mine, and he wasn’t leaving. Culver Scarbrough would not abandon me the way the ghosts of my past had. He had claimed me, and I had let him. Worse, I had welcomed him willingly into every corner of my life. My obsession with him was still new, but it had already rooted itself impossibly deep, winding through parts of me I was sure I couldn’t survive without anymore. I didn’t care how unhealthy it looked. I didn’t care if it made me dependent or foolish or reckless. The thought of curling into him and never leaving felt like home.

My arms slid around his neck, locking us together as his kiss deepened, his tongue slipping into my mouth with certainty. The way he kissed me dissolved everything else until morality blurred at the edges, until guilt dulled and the world narrowed down to only him. It felt like he could have burned the entire world to ash around us, and I wouldn’t have noticed with his mouth on mine and my pulse chanting his name like a prayer.

“Culv,” I murmured when I finally pulled back, breathless, my forehead resting against his. “If you’re gonna do something like that again… if you’re gonna carry out justice your way, I wanna know. Don’t leave me in the dark. I wanna be part of your life… so no secrets.”

His gaze held mine without flinching, dark and terrifyingly sincere.

“Then there will be no secrets from you,” he said softly before sealing the promise with another slow kiss. “I cherish every part of you, Ira. Even the parts you believe are unworthy.” His voice lowered further, intimate and devastatingly certain. “I love you, my little lamb. And nothing will ever take us apart.”

The word "love" struck me like a fracture splitting open through my chest, sharp and blinding and far too overwhelming to hold all at once. I didn’t know what to do with it. I had never felt anything like it before, not something so holy and terrifying and all-consuming. If love was real, maybe it was the aching hum beneath my skin, a molten warmth flooding through my veins until it became impossible to separate from myself.

“I—” The word caught helplessly in my throat, thin and fragile.

I wanted to say it back.

God, I wanted to tell him I felt it too, that something deep and unshakable had wrapped itself around my heart so tightly I couldn’t breathe around it anymore.

But I wasn’t ready. The word felt too heavy. Too final.

“It’s okay,” Culver whispered, taking my hand and pressing it against his cheek. His smile was slow, gentle, and devastating. “We have eternity, so take your time. I will wait.”

Eternity.

The word echoed through me, vast and impossible, stretching so wide inside my chest that I didn’t know where to place it. How was I supposed to breathe when someone offered something so patiently? Something that absolute?

Culver was too steady in the ways that actually mattered. Too careful with the broken parts of me. He never punished me for hesitating. Never pulled away when I spiraled or stumbled or failed to meet him halfway. He only drew me closer, smoothing his hands over my fractures like he already knew exactly where they were and had decided they were beautiful anyway.

I nodded because my voice refused to cooperate, because if I tried to speak I was almost certain everything inside me would spill out in the wrong order.

Instead, I rested my head against his chest and tried listening to the heartbeat I knew wasn’t there. I let the moment hold me for just a second longer, long enough to pretend he was all there was.

And maybe if I had stayed there longer, if I had allowed myself to sink fully into the dangerous electricity without questioning it, I wouldn’t have felt it.

That slow, creeping wrongness gathering at the edges of my world.

Because I didn’t know yet that it was only the beginning.

I didn’t know there were still secrets buried beneath silence, truths curled deep inside the shadows watching me with endless patience. I didn’t know there were people who were not entirely people lingering just beyond the fragile circle of light Culver had wrapped around me.

Smiles sharpened like knives.

Hands waiting. They weren’t coming to steal me. They were coming to take me.