Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(51)

He didn’t say anything, but I could see him flexing his jaw, working hard to contain whatever raw emotion my words conjured up in him.

“Even if you were willing to deal with that for the rest of your life…” I shook my head at the irony of it all.

“You have no idea what I’d be willing to live through for you, Jemma.” His sapphire eyes flared as something primal flashed through them. “I’ll walk into Hell with you just to be able to stand beside you.”

Sweet baby Reapers.

I fought back tears as my emotions started to overwhelm me. I couldn’t let him destroy himself. I couldn’t allow my want for him—my want for us—to cloud over the storm that was coming for him.

“I know you would, Trace,” I said without the faintest mark of doubt in my heart. “And that’s exactly the problem, because I’m not willing to let you do that.” My words lingered in the air between us, pulling us down like gravity.

I had to find a way stop this thing with Trace and I had to do it before my mind became too consumed with Dominic to care one iota about Trace’s pain and suffering. I needed to find the strength to push him away while I still loved him...before it was too late and I obliterated every last piece of his beautiful heart.

Oh God, the room was closing in on me again, trapping me inside a box I couldn’t exist in.

“I can’t do this, Trace. I don’t want this. This isn’t what I want.” My throat tightened into a noose-like knot as the words rambled out of me.

“Jemma—”

“Take me back to Dominic’s.” I jumped up to my feet and paced the small space between us as I tried to fill my lungs with enough air to breathe properly. This wasn’t going to end well for us—it wasn’t going to end well for him. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.”

He stood up and took a slow, cautious step towards me. “Just take a deep breath, okay? You’re panicking.”

“Hell-yeah I’m panicking,” I said, gasping for morsels of air.

“I’m right here. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Oh God, oh no. I suddenly felt it in my belly; the words that had been sitting there like a lump of coal were moving upward to the surface, pushing through me as they bumbled out of my mouth without my permission. “I need Dominic! I need him! Take me back to him right now! Please,” I begged.

He flinched as though I slapped him across the face.

I wanted to back-peddle, to take back the words, but nothing came out. I just stared at him, shaking my head as if silently answering a question that no one asked.

“I know you don’t mean that,” he said and took another careful step towards me. His voice a husky whisper in my ears. “It’s just the bloodbond talking. You have to fight it, Jemma. Don’t stop fighting it.”

“I can’t.” My hands were shaking now, trembling as though I were going through withdrawals again. The only thing I wanted to do right then was run back to Dominic and throw myself down at his feet—to beg him to make the ache go away.

Trace closed the remaining gap between us. “Look at me, Jemma,” he said, cupping my cheeks with his strong hands as he pulled up my face. “I swear to God I’m going to find a way to break the bond, but you need to keep fighting it until I do. You can’t give in, do you hear me?”

I shook my head again, trying to wiggle free.

“I love you, Jemma! Stay with me,” he pleaded. “Fight it!”

His words reverberated through my brain as though looking for something to latch on to—as though looking for the remnants of the love I once had for him. It was still there of course, sequestered in some dark corner as an uncontrollable force continued to lay down brick after brick around it.

If only my feelings for him had disappeared when the bloodbond formed. It would be so much easier to give up and walk away from him if I didn’t care about him. But that wasn’t the case. Not by a long shot.

He was still my forever dream and I loved him with the realest, most sacred part of my heart.

“That’s it, just keep breathing,” he whispered softly as my breathing gradually returned to normal.

The room, which had been too small and unforgiving, stopped feeling as though it were closing in on me, and my trembling hands steadied themselves out.

Unfortunately, I was still left with the bitter taste of the words I had spewed out at him.

“I don’t care about that,” he answered, still holding my face.

“I’m so—”

He pressed his finger against my mouth to silence me, his eyes examining and searching with purpose.

When he was certain that I wasn’t going to apologize again, his finger moved from my mouth as his thumb lightly traced the shape of my lips. There was a hunger in his eyes, a look of starvation as he gazed down at my mouth, and it matched my own perfectly. Dipping his head, he brought his mouth to mine and gently caressed my lips with his.

I never thought it was possible for something to feel so right, yet entirely wrong, and at the same exact time. But that’s exactly what I was feeling. Everything inside me was warring against itself.

“Trace…I don’t think we should,” I whispered against his mouth, my hands flattened against his ripped stomach. I still had no idea how strong the bloodbond was going to get and whether or not resisting it would truly prove to be my downfall. And frankly, after the panic attack I just had, I wasn’t interested in testing out that theory tonight.