Elara's POV
My breath catches in my throat. What does that mean?
“You are mine, Elara. You can fight it all you want, but you are mine. And I am yours.”
I don’t know how to respond to this. I can hear the truth in his voice, and the raw honesty makes my chest tight with emotion that I don’t understand.
“From the moment I first laid eyes on you,” he continues, his voice dropping lower, “you were mine.”
He stares at me, those intense eyes burning into mine across the space between us. The possessiveness in his gaze is absolute, unshakeable.
“I’m a patient man, Elara,” he says, my name rolling off his tongue like it belongs there. “I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to believe me. You are the first woman I have ever cared about.”
With that, he turns and walks toward the stream, disa
