CHAPTER 147: FROZEN HEARTS

"A future with you?" I questioned, pondering what he was getting on about.

"I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise."

"Nothing else can surprise me."

Damon tipped his head, eyeing me amusedly like he couldn’t get enough. "Are you scared of what you are?"

I swallowed hard at his question. It wasn’t something I had thought of, but this became the beacon of how I had felt for the last few days.

I leveled my gaze as a heavy feeling swallowed me.

"There is nothing to be afraid of. Everything about you is extraordinary."

"What part of finally finding what you are and why is extraordinary?"

"You always see the worst, Lou. Even in the worst, there are the best parts."

"Like you?" I mocked. "Do you think you have the best parts?"

"You wound me, Lou."

I chewed the inside of my mouth, despising how he sounded like Drevon. He wasn’t Drevon, and yet they were scary alike, like he was the other side.

It made me wonder what kind of person Drevon would have been if he hadn’t chosen to walk a different path from his brother. I would have gotten Damon for a husband.

If I had married him, would he have made my life a nightmare rather than a daydream? I already knew the answer to that question.

"You will never be good, Damon. Never."

He chuckled like he found what I said funny. "After all this time, you still don’t understand me?"

"I don’t want to."

"I’m the villain in your story, pretty Lou, and I have no intention of being your hero." He closed the distance between us.

"I don’t want a villain."

"But there’s always one in every story."

I swallowed hard.

"Even a villain can feel."

"What do you feel?" I asked as if to ridicule, but I found myself being honest with my question.

"I feel everything, emotions too... I’m more human than any human is."

"A joke."

"A truth," he corrected. "But I don’t want that. Lycans are predators, since when do predators have empathy?"

His heated gaze dropped to my lips. "Predators towards their prey have many hoops of feelings. The urge to devour, destroy, and have. I want to do all of those things to you, and many more. If you’d have me."

"Keep dreaming."

"I never dream... I don’t stick to trivia like that. I take."

"You’ll never have me."

"Do you love Drevon?" he asked as he circled me like a predator marking its prey.

"I don’t recall agreeing to an interrogation."

"It’s a simple question, Lou. Why so tense?"

I froze when I felt him behind me, a hand on my waist.

"Your heart is in the right place, is it not? I expected a quick answer," he murmured to my ear.

"I’m not playing your games."

"But this is no game, Lou. And by the way, you haven’t answered. Do you doubt your feelings for Drevon? Or having thoughts?"

I tried to move away from him, but he kept me in place.

"Scared? Or do you think you’re incapable of love?"

My pulse raced at his words, and I found myself vulnerable.

"That’s it, isn’t it?" His hand moved to my stomach, gliding up with ease until it rested on my chest, where my heart pounded.

"Is your heart as frozen as your blood? I heard Snowblood are lifeless beings who are incapable of love. Maybe that’s why, or is it a broken home that made you like this?"

"Stop..." I muttered.

His lips touched the helix of my ear. "I know you, Lou. I know everything. I see you in me, too. Did you think I was always so...me?"

he sneered. "Mother was never a mother, and Father was more of a monarch to us that a father. Our existence wasn’t one to be cherished. It was a means to an end. It was out of duty."

I could feel the pain in his voice.

"Our parents may have shared love to bring us into this world, but their love was never enough for us. They were selfish. My own mother couldn’t bear to look at me because I wasn’t the perfect son she needed to further the bloodline or be for the new world envisioned. Even my father didn’t think I was fit."

"Drevon had it that way too..."

"Oh, Lou. He was seen, and I wasn’t."

"You said you were both alike."

"Yes, in more ways than he can imagine. He’s just the princely version you like fucking so much."

I winced, but I kept my mind firm to drill into his head in return. "And yet he didn’t let his past dictate his future."

Damon’s body went still, and I knew I had him. It was my turn to face him, but I didn’t break the distance; I stared the devil in the eyes, knowing what would become of me.

"Yes... he was goddess chosen, but in some way, he had it just like you did. You hate him because he’s a version you couldn’t be, even if you tried. You were weak to break from the seed your parents sowed within you. Drevon had it too... and do you know what made him not wander in that darkness for long like you did?"

Damon inhaled.

"He met me."

He snatched my jaw in a bruising hold.

"I met you, too."

"Yes...but he chose to open his heart for me, and that made him win over the darkness. You claim you want me, but it’s not out of the love you have in your heart. You simply want to escape the darkness as your brother did, and you see me as a tool to make you feel. To not be broken."

I stepped away from him, but he yanked me back to him, our faces inches apart.

"You’re wrong," he whispered.

"Am I?" I countered. "You cannot open your heart, Damon, not for me or anyone. Because in your eyes, everyone is just tools."

"Is that a challenge?"

"It cannot be one because just like me, your heart is frozen."

He kissed me.