#Chapter 160: A Real Family

Agnes “Because I love you.” The words hung in the air between us, simple and profound all at once. I stared up at Elijah, my mind struggling to process what I’d just heard. He… loves me? My heart seemed to expand in my chest, swelling with an unexpected emotion that I could barely contain. The fog from whatever Mason had drugged me with was still clearing, but Elijah’s words cut through it like sunlight through mist. “You… love me?” I whispered, hardly daring to believe it. It had to have been a hallucination, a machination of the drug. I had to be dreaming. But when I flexed my fingers into his biceps, I met nothing but solid muscle and fabric. When I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, he was still there, gazing down at me, although his face swam slightly above mine as the drug took hold of me. “Yes,” Elijah said, his eyes locked onto mine. “I love you, Agnes. I love you.” He pressed his lips to my forehead, my cheeks, the corner of