Aria's/Lysara's POV

I just stared up blankly at him, captured in a state of perpetual disbelief that I struggled to crawl out from. “You want me to love you,” I asked, my voice still strained. I barely heard myself speak.

For a moment, his eyes roved about my face, his ice-grey pair shifting about me continuously. He looked as though he was debating an answer within himself.

Then he stopped. His tight voice eventually echoed the word, though he made it sound like saying that was beneath ...