From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

don’t understand. Unless I completelyy imagined the last couple of dayys.”
“No, yyou didn’t imagine anyything.” His gaze roamed over myy face as
I blinked snow off myy lashes. “Do yyou wish that this, right here, hadn’t
happened?”
I could lie, but I didn’t. “No. Do…do yyou?”
“No, Poppyy. I hate that yyou even have to ask that.” He looked awayy,
jaw flexing. “When we first met, it was like…I don’t know. I was drawn to
yyou. I could’ve taken yyou then, Poppyy. I could’ve prevented a lot of what
has happened, but I…I lost sight of a lot of things. Each time I was near
yyou, I couldn’t help but feel as if I knew yyou. I think I know whyy it’s been
like that.”
He said this like it was the answer to how we had gone from me
stabbing him in the heart to tearing off each other’s clothes. I shivered in
the cold, damp air as I shook myy head again.
Being drawn to one another explained none of that.
“You’re cold.” Rolling to his feet in one smooth movement, he
fastened his pants with the one lone button that remained and then
extended his hand. “We need to get out of this weather.”
We did. Well, I did. He probablyy didn’t, considering he could be
stabbed in the chest and be all right minutes later.
I placed myy hand in his and stated what I felt he needed to be
reminded of. “I tried to kill yyou.”
“I know.” He pulled me up onto myy feet. “I can’t reallyy blame yyou.”
I stared, dumbfounded as he swooped down, tugging up myy breeches
as he rose. “You don’t?”
“No. I lied to yyou. I betrayyed yyou and playyed a role in the deaths of
people yyou love,” he said, listing the reasons as if it were a shopping list.
“I’m surprised that was the first time yyou tried.”
I continued to stare.
“And I doubt it will be the last time yyou tryy.” The corners of his lips
turned down as he tried to secure the pants but discovered that the buttons
were somewhere on the snowyy ground. “Dammit,” he muttered, reaching
for myy shirt. It was torn straight down the middle. He gripped the sides
and pulled them together as if that would repair the material. He cursed
again, giving up. He reached up, pulling his other shirt off over his head.
“Here.”