Break Her

I wanted her.

She was just two floors away from me here in my castle.

 
And some piece of her—naïve and inexperienced—wanted me.

 
The man who was doomed at her hand.

 
I could mostly ignore that fact, now that I was used to her presence. But I wondered if not telling her about it was a bigger betrayal than not telling her about my arrangement with her father. If she did manage her Ascension—and when she found out what that meant—then she would know the truth.

 
That there hadn’t been a moment, ever since we met, that I didn’t see my destruction inside her eyes.

 
I could only hope that the shame of her learning that would be absolved by a second realization: that I had loved her anyway.