Mya braced the chair as she felt her world shift, leaving her spinning and choking under Erik's sea of turmoil.

"Do you understand that if I slack in my duties, if I have a distraction, if anything in our world ever goes wrong, I have failed you all?" Erik pressed at his eyes with his palms, then raked his fingers through his hair. Then he whispered, "And do you understand that even though I know all of this, that I feel all of this, I still want you? That no matter how impossible it ...