"What is it? What's wrong?" Valen sounded a bit panicked when he asked that, but I couldn’t see his face through my tears.

"You can't love me!" I wailed, covering my face with my hands to stop my tears, but the effort was futile.

"What?" He was clearly confused by my reaction.

Well, so was I.

I felt myself being lifted from the bed and settled into Valen’s lap as he wrapped his arms around me. I twisted around and buried my face in his chest as I continued ...