Chapter 11

RYDER. Her eyes widened. For a heartbeat, she simply stared at me, and I watched the emotions flicker across her face like shadows. Surprise, first. Then uncertainty that made my chest tighten. Her gaze searched mine with an intensity that felt like being seen all the way through.I could practically hear the questions that were undoubtedly running through her mind. 'Does he mean it. Is this just the bond. If I say yes, what happens after? What if this is real and I'm not enough? What if it's not real and I let myself believe anyway?'The silence between us lingered, delicate and heavy.I held her gaze and waited, forcing myself not to move, not to lean closer, not to do anything that might feel like pressure. This had to be her choice. Completely, entirely hers.No assumptions.No expectations.Just a question hanging in the space between us.Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. A blush spread slowly across her cheeks, painting her skin that soft shade of pink I was quickly becom

Chapter 12

BRIELLA. When he kissed me, I wasn’t ready.I had time to pull back. I had time to laugh it off or change the subject or stand up and put distance between us. I did none of those things. His palm settled warm against my cheek, and then his mouth was on mine, and every thought I had been organizing for the past hour scattered like papers in a gust of wind.I had been kissed exactly zero times before that moment. I had imagined it, of course. Vague, soft-focused daydreams that bore no resemblance to the reality of Ryder's lips pressing firm and certain against my own. The mate-bond lit up between us like a current completing a circuit. Sparks raced across my skin wherever he touched me, and my nerve endings fired in a cascade that made every moment before this one feel like I had been living underwater.A voice in my head, thin and rational, said to stop. Said this was too fast. Said I should slow down, breathe, think. That voice had always been the one I listened to. It had kept me car

Chapter 13

BRIELLA.My head was spinning. Not from the kiss itself, though that alone would have been enough to shake me. Something foreign and hot threaded through my blood, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. With it came questions I couldn't silence fast enough.Was this real?Was he reacting to me, or to the bond that fate tied us together with?Did Ryder actually want Briella, the girl who was the opposite of him, or was he just craving whatever the bond had decided for him?I tried to quiet them. I pressed the questions down, buried them beneath the weight of his gaze. Because the way he was looking at me right now…those half-lidded eyes, his tight jaw, had me feeling something I'd never felt before. Something that didn't have a name I knew.Mated people had tried to explain it before. The bond is overwhelming, they'd say. Intense. Powerful. Like nothing else. But none of those words came close. This was all-consuming. Every nerve ending blazed. Every breath I drew came back saturated with h

All Chapters of The Darkness Between Us: Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13