Chapter 103: To Be Consumed
Love. Again.
The word seared through her thoughts like a red-hot needle. ’I love him. I really do. I finally know what it means.’
The realization left her breathless, the words she had never dared to think now swirling in her mind with such intensity that she feared they might escape her mouth.
Lorelai pressed her lips tightly together, burying her face in the solid warmth of the king’s chest. For a moment, she let herself listen to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, its distant thumping grounding her in the whirlwind of emotions that threatened to swallow her whole.
There could be no other explanation. From the moment she first laid eyes on him, her heart had known, even if her mind refused to accept it. She had fallen in love.
The constant longing, the magnetic pull, the unfamiliar yet irresistible attraction that defied reason and danger—all of it was love. Her heart, rebellious and wild, had betrayed her rational mind. And now, there was no turning back.
She had been a lonely princess, her carefully ordered world intact, until he arrived—a dangerous stranger who unraveled her with every glance, every touch. She had known better, yet she let him in, let him carve a space in her heart where no one else had ever been. And in the end, everything she had built came tumbling down.
She let him consume her. And worse still, she let herself be consumed.
But what startled her most was the realization that she liked it. She liked the chaos, the loss of control, the exhilarating freedom of snapping the invisible strings that bound her, one by one.