Before I Let Go (Skyland #1)(5)

He pressed my palm to his chest, and his heart raged beneath my fingertips.

“Please just stay for tonight. Just tonight.” His hand trembled against my own, and I bit down on my lip as my chest seemed to ascend and descend to the same frantic beat. “Please, Adara. I need you.”

His words sliced through me, cutting through every bit of resolve I had left, and I knew that I would end up letting this man destroy me if he asked me to. He had shown me exactly who he was, but I was still willing to walk into the fire as if he hadn’t.

I looked back to my bedroll as I tried to fight the urge to say yes. I felt weak giving in to him. It was sickening how hard it was to push the word no from my lips.

“Just tonight.” My lips trembled as I said the words, but his hand steadied against mine. He pulled me forward until I had no choice but to drop back to my knees in front of him. He lifted my hand in his, and I couldn’t look away as he brought my wrist to his mouth and pressed a gentle kiss to the sensitive skin on the inside.

The same skin his brother had torn open with his dagger and taken from. The same skin that I thought he had healed.

I attempted to pull out of his touch, but he held firm, dragging me closer to him inch by inch. Just as our chests were about to meet, Evren laid back and pulled me down with him. We were hardly touching, only his hand still on my wrist, but I could feel him everywhere as I lay at his side and stared into his handsome face.

He wasn’t saying anything. Just silently watching me with his hand in mine, and I didn’t understand how he was so calm when I felt like screaming.

“What were you dreaming about?” The question slipped through my lips before I could think better of it, and I watched the edge of pain that still filled his eyes.

“You.” His gaze searched over my face as I flinched back from his answer.

“Me?”

“Yes.” He nodded before lifting his hand and sliding two fingers across my cheek until he tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “I dreamed of what I have to lose, princess. I dreamed of what my brother would be willing to kill for.”

A chill ran down my mark, and I swallowed down my fear at the truth of his words. Gavril would kill to get me back, but how far would he go? Would he hurt Evren in order to get the power that flowed through my blood?

“He is your brother.” The words slipped past my lips and my chest ached for him. It was something both Evren and I shared. Those who were our own blood, the people who should have cared for us most, were more than willing to use us so easily.

“He is.” Evren looked down at my wrist, and I wondered if he could remember the night we left as easily as I could. Did that night haunt his dreams as it did my own? “But that doesn’t mean anything, Adara.” His thumb traced over my scar before he slowly looked back up at me. “He will stop at nothing until he has you back.”

“I won’t go back.”

His grip tightened on my wrist. “I know. I won’t let him take you again.”

“And if that means he tries to kill you to get to me?”

“You are mine, consequences be damned.”

“Yet you would so willingly use me as a pawn in your games?” These were games of kingdoms. A game I had no business being part of.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” He didn’t speak a single word that lacked conviction. “Do you not think it would be far easier for me to give in to what my father wants or even my mother? Do you honestly think I wanted to fall for the one person I shouldn’t want, the one person who could destroy everything?”

I didn’t say a word in return. I simply stared up at the tent ceiling as I tried not to let his words affect me. I was failing miserably, and I feared he could hear the erratic beat of my heart.

“I have spent my entire life making decisions based on others, princess. If I was thinking of no one other than myself, then I would have stolen you away the first moment I had the chance. I would have stolen you away and never looked back.”

“Your mother?” I was desperate to know how many of his decisions had been affected by her. What would his mother have him do with me if he allowed her the chance?

“My mother, my kingdom, my friends.” He tucked his arm behind his head and rolled to his back. He stared up at the tent ceiling too, and I wondered what thoughts were running through his head that he didn’t say aloud. “The acts of my father, and my brother after him, have determined the fate of my decisions more than anything. It is often that we are ruled by hate far more than we are ever controlled by love.”

Chill bumps ghosted over my skin. He was right. Far too many of my own decisions were fueled by hate. Hate for my mother and the decisions she made. Hate for his family for the life they forced me to live. Hate for the dreams that plagued my mind of my father, whom I didn’t even know.

“But your powers are…” I trailed off, and he turned to look at me.

“I’m strong, Adara.” He lifted his fingers just above his chest and let his magic fall from them. It coiled around his wrist almost as if it were alive and eager to touch him. “But I am not strong enough to defeat them. Not on my own.”

“But you’re strong enough with me?” Fear consumed me, but I didn’t know what I feared the most. The fact that I was going to be used in this war against kingdoms or the fear I wouldn’t be what they had expected of me.