Chapter 57

I kept on my black funeral dress as I wandered the hall toward the library. Even from inside the thick stone walls, I could hear the party in full swing outside; laughter and chatter swelled as if there weren’t two more bodies in the ground.

I pushed the door open, already knowing he was there even before I saw him standing by the fire. An eclipse shutting out the brightness in his dark but beautiful attire.

“Simone,” he said in his rumbling voice without even looking back. His voice sounded raw and deep and yearning.

I slowly walked toward him after locking the door, hopefully quietly behind me. I couldn’t have any surprise distractions, and I was not myself, not on my guard with him around.

I edged up to him and stood as close as I could next to him without touching him.

I could feel the electricity course between—a living thing.

Ezra spoke, still looking at the fire, “I was trained from a young age to find a beauty of sorts in rightness, in the outcome, but that never sat well with me. It was too rigid.”

I stood silently waiting for the rest of the confession I felt building.

“Then, I was taught to find it in execution, and that made more sense to me. I was trained to find beauty in fearlessness, in the sound that steel made when it met with another strong blade.”

He breathed out, but it was so quiet that I wouldn’t have noticed without my new hearing. He turned to me, and I forced myself to meet his blazing stare. My cheeks felt hot, and my stomach tightened in nerves and anticipation.

“Simone>” His soothing, thundering voice sounded more like the promise of a storm. “You are beautiful in your own right, and I do apologize if I attributed your beauty to your capabilities, to your sword, because of my training, my upbringing,” he spoke, and his eyes seemed hollow with his admission.

“But I find you beautiful not because of your face or your fighting style.” He shrugged, his half smile tugged through his scar. “Those both help, of course.”

I laughed once. “Thanks…” I replied, my voice trailed away.

“But you are beautiful in your resilience, you are beautiful in your strength, in your snarkiness, in the way you calculate things and think of them before others do. In the way you restrain yourself in ways that will serve you later but will not give you satisfaction now.” I tried to focus on the words, but my blood was rushing to my ears. I wasn’t expecting this, and I didn’t know how to take it—how to accept it.

“I found you curious in a world I deemed dull. I found you interesting, and so few things were to me, and since I realized nothing I noticed was ever truly interesting before you.”

I swallowed, wanting to look away, and it seemed he did too. I wished I could find something to say, but all I could do was focus on my burning eyes, trying to will the tears not to well up there.

“You are beauty, strength, and everything I wish I could be. I want to learn from you I want to be with you. I know you are still finding yourself, but what I have found in you is stability. You are chaos.” He laughed. “But at least your chaos can be depended on.”

I laughed loudly and wiped my eyes; the sobs I suppressed rattled against my chest as I choked on them.

I felt the affection, the truth in his words. It wasn’t just because I was deprived of any affection for years. This was something else.

Something new but raw and real.

“I want to be in your life in whatever capacity you’ll have me,” he admitted, his Adam's apple bobbing. “If you’ll have me.”

That struck me.

He knew me so briefly and during a time when I put forward my worst or who I might truly be. He was actively trying to be better where I wasn’t.

It should be the other way around. It was the other way around. I craved him more deeply than I had words for, I had never felt anything akin to this, no companionship like this.

But I had not let myself delve into it because I did not believe in a future for myself, so there could never be one for us.

“Ezra,” I said, my words struggling against my raw throat. “I’m the one who should be asking that.”

“Simone, I have done things,” he replied. His face dropped, and his eyes darkened with his haunted past.

“I cut off a dick,” I said, with a slight shrug, trying to pull him back, back to reality, back to me.

“So have I.”

“I enjoyed it,” I added.

He winced, but then his face softened. “There is no part of you that can scare me”

“Okay.” I shrugged

He raised a brow. “Try me.”

My words, confessions, my deepest fears bubbled up.

That I was the one that made myself unloveable, that it was not others that turned me into a weapon but that I had. That I craved their blood on my hands more than I had wanted anything, a visceral need I could not shake, nor did I want to.

I wanted to yell them, for him to see me, see me, and… turn away? Accept me? I was too afraid, and they never left my lips.

“When you’re ready, if you ever are, I’m here.” He wrapped a piece of my hair around his finger and tucked it gently behind my ear. “And there is no part of what you share with me that won't make you love you more, you delicious little killer.”

My lips twitched into an unexpected smile, and I felt… I felt seen. I knew at that moment it didn’t matter what I said. That no matter what he saw in me, no matter what I shared, he wouldn’t turn away.

“What do you want?” I asked. “From me.”

“Whatever you will let me have,” he responded too quickly.

“Okay.”

I swallowed. I wanted this. I hoped it wouldn’t make things worse, wouldn’t hurt him or hurt us further, but I thought I needed the experience, the release before tomorrow. And more than anything…

I wanted him, too. Possibly more than he wanted me.

I needed him in this moment.

I needed him.

I grabbed at the back of my dress and fought to undo it enough that it could slip off me. Ezra’s eyes widened as he watched me.

Eventually, too long later, I was able to push the fabric off my shoulders and the flimsy bra unhooked with it.

I was left standing almost bare in front of him in an inky pool made of mourning clothes from the ones I had killed.