Chapter 216: Don’t
Gavriel had been shocked when Aliana swatted his hand away back at the dinner table. He had only been trying to soothe her fraying emotions after noticing her distress when the wine spilled.
The fact that she rejected his touch as if it burned her had shaken him profoundly, leaving him unable to move for a few seconds while she fled the room as if someone were chasing her.
But just as his eyes tracked the last glimpse of her before she disappeared, he saw the dark tendrils leaking out of her and understood what was happening.
Her mother and Jade were ready to go after her, but he stood up before they could even move.
He could not risk anyone being close to her right now. It was not because he feared she might harm them with her powers, but because he demanded to be the one to get through to her.
He wanted her alone so he could finally make her talk to him, something she had refused to do until now.
But when he slipped into her room quietly and witnessed her struggling at the sink, desperately scrubbing those beautiful hands of hers, he almost lost it.
This...
This was what she had been hiding all along.
The pain of carrying everything inside her. The burden that had been slowly eating her alive.
He could see it all now.
Every painful sob that tore through her cut into him far deeper than he wanted to admit. Every broken word that fell from her lips as she begged him to stay away only pushed him further towards the darkness.
As if every part of him rejected the very thought of her denying him her presence... denying him the right to be near her.
It was ridiculous.
She was his.
There was no force in existence capable of keeping him away from her...
Not even Aliana herself.
’I killed Jacob.’
Her confession did raise questions in his head as to how it happened.
Not that he cared that the corrupt human was dead, but he could see the devastating impact that taking someone’s life was having on his little rose.
Withering her away little by little.
Her powers were leaking out more than ever, and it would have been right of her to tell him to stay away... had he been a normal human.
But for the first time in his existence... he was grateful that he wasn’t.
That he was... the devil.
Then she said something that struck him deeper than anything else she had said until now.
’If you don’t stay away from me, then... it will harm you too.’
No one in his life had ever been concerned for his well-being before.
No one had ever worried about his safety, largely because he had never had many people around him to begin with. And those who were... they cared, but never to this extent, mainly because they knew who he was... and what he was capable of.
But why...
Why did her concern for his well-being affect him so differently?
He couldn’t explain it.
Before his mind could even catch up, his feet had already carried him to her, and he finally buried her deep within his arms.
All he wanted was to tell her that nothing could ever harm him.
All he wanted was for her to stop crying as though her entire world was falling apart... to stop looking so utterly broken.
She was his little rose.
And he would destroy everything, if necessary, if only it meant she would stop withering away like this.
Lowering his face into the crook of her neck, he took a slow, deep inhale of her maddening, heady scent of roses, letting it wash over him and keep a firm leash on the darkness stirring within him.
And finally, he whispered softly, "Shh... Ana. It’s alright."
Aliana went completely still in his embrace as she felt him tighten his grip around her. She felt his fingers bury themselves in her hair while he continued to speak.
"You have done nothing wrong."
For a moment, Aliana couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Done nothing wrong? Did he not hear her confess that she had... killed someone?
Slowly, she lifted her arms, which had been lying limp at her sides, and reached out to press against his chest.
She moved her shocked face to look at him, searching his gaze and noticed...
There was not an ounce of terror in his eyes, nor was there the disgust she had feared she would see on his face after her confession.
Nothing.
Instead, his eyes were filled with the same intensity he had always looked at her with, the same fire that told her how much he wanted her.
Her trembling lips parted, and her voice came out cracked. "W-What?"
Gavriel cupped her cheeks in his warm, large hands, brushing his thumb tenderly to wipe away the tears still rolling down her face. "I said you did nothing wrong, Ana."
"Did you not hear me? I said I kil-"
"You did what you had to do to protect yourself," Gavriel cut her off. His face turned darker as he continued, "Did he not kidnap you? Was he not going to harm you?"
When she remained at a loss for words, he pressed on. "It was self-defence, that is all. And I cannot be more glad that you did that, because if you had not..." He leaned closer, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on hers. "...I would have."
His eyes burned with such ferocity that in that moment, she believed him. She believed that he would have killed Jacob himself without a single shred of doubt.
For some reason, the storm raging inside her began to quieten.
They remained still, his forehead resting against hers as they knelt on the floor together, until another concern that had been eating at her surfaced.
Suddenly, she pressed her hands against his chest, trying to put some distance between them, and panic once again filled her eyes.
"You have to get away from me before..."
Now that her senses had cleared a little, she could still feel the blood in her veins boiling, a terrifying reminder that her strange powers remained dangerously unstable.
But Gavriel simply pulled her face back towards his and whispered against her lips, "You cannot harm me, baby."
Aliana shook her head.
"You don’t understand..." she whispered as she began pushing against his chest again, only to freeze when Gavriel commanded in a low voice, "Don’t."
He closed his eyes, refusing to let her create even the slightest distance between them, and murmured in a voice thick with restrained emotion, "Don’t try to push me away anymore, Ana."