The confession of an angel

**Ivery Clark POV** 

The word hung between us like a live wire.

Yes.

My heart missed a beat. No—several.

I stared at him, the world tilting, unsteady under him. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing, if my pulse was still mine.

“You what..?” I croaked, the sound brittle, like old glass about to crack.

“I like you,” Alrigo said, his words a raw rasp against the heavy silence. “It’s always been you. Even when I told myself it wasn’t. Even when I hated you for it. Because I don’t know how to want anyone else. I don’t want anyone else.”

“But..,” he confessed, voice breaking, brittle and raw. “I don’t know how to be the man you deserve. Hell, I don’t even know how to be the man you could stay with. But if you’re asking whether you mean something to me… you’re the only thing that ever has.”

Tears blurred my vision, a soft sob catching in my throat. The part of me that wanted to fight, to run, to pretend none of this mattered — it shattered.

“Then why… why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered. “You said you hated my presence, hated me.”

His jaw clenched. He looked away for a beat, then back at me, gaze feral.

“I lied.”

His eyes lifted to mine, and I saw it all there. The love. The devastation. 

“Because loving you was the one thing that could ruin me,” he said hoarsely. “And it did.”

“Do you know you hurted me when you chose your brother over me,” his voice cracked then, his eyes glinting, not just with rage anymore but something deeper, uglier, and achingly human. “And it felt like someone took a blade to my ribs, Ivery. And I’m still fucking bleeding.”

My lips trembled. My throat burned.

“Do I mean anything to you?” His voice trembled. “Or was I just a mistake you can walk away from?” His eyes searched mine like a man drowning. 

“Tell me what I'm to you, Ivery? Do I mean anything? Or was I just the monster who saved you from one hell just to lock you in another?”

Tears stung my eyes, the weight of it too much. “Alrigo…”

“Answer me,” he whispered, voice raw. “Do I mean anything to you?” 

The room felt too small for the storm between us — all the unsaid things, the bitter love, the betrayals. My heart thundered, aching, traitorous.

I couldn’t take it anymore. 

Couldn’t bear the ruin in his eyes. 

Couldn’t pretend I wasn’t drowning in him. I finally admitted.

“You mean everything,” I choked out, the words breaking as they left me.

“What..?” His breath hitched, his body rigid as though my confession had cracked the last of his defenses.

I couldn’t stop the tears. They slipped from my eyes, tracing hot, silent. “Damn you, Alrigo — you ruined me, and I still.. I still couldn't come to hate you. I told myself I did. But even then… there was always a part of me that..that still… loved you.”

“You always meant something to me, Alrigo. And I was too scared to admit it.”

I felt his breath catch, his hands tighten where they caged me in.

And all of a sudden, his mouth was on mine, desperate, aching, a kiss that tasted of sorrow and salvation both. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t perfect. It was them — broken, bloodied, clinging to the only thing they had left: each other.

His hands roamed — rough, trembling, threading into my hair, gripping my waist like he was terrified I might disappear if he let go.

“Alrigo—”

But he cut me off with another kiss, this one deeper, hungrier, tasting of everything he’d buried for so long. The bed dipped beneath me as his weight pressed me down, his body a storm against mine.

“I swear to God,” he breathed against my lips, his voice shaking, “if you ever leave me, I’ll burn the whole fking world to ash to drag you back. Do you understand..?” 

I shuddered, tears slipping free, because God help me — I’d let him.

Because there was no world for me without Alrigo Valerie in it.

And we both knew it.

His lips trailed down my jaw, over the pulse hammering wildly at my throat, as though he could taste the tremble in my skin. 

His breath was warm, ragged, and when he murmured my name — “Ivery…” — it wasn’t a curse, or a threat, but something heartbreakingly soft. Like a plea.

Clothes were a distant thought, forgotten in the tangle of limbs, in the heat of skin against skin..

“You drive me insane,” he whispered hoarsely, his forehead pressing to mine. “But I don’t know how to exist without you anymore.”

And then he kissed me again — slower this time, but no less possessive. His tongue swept against mine, coaxing, claiming, until my breath hitched and my body arched into his on instinct. 

His hands moved, mapping the curves of my body like a man starved, palms flattening against my ribs, trailing up, down, memorizing.

He was everywhere — his scent, his warmth, the weight of him pressing me into the mattress.

When his mouth moved lower, skimming over my collarbone, teeth scraping lightly against the sensitive skin, a soft, broken sound slipped from my lips. I felt him smile against my skin, that dark, crooked smile that made my stomach clench.

“I’ll stop,” he murmured, voice rough, trembling, “if you tell me to. But if you don’t… I’m not letting you go tonight, Ivery.”

I bit my lip, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.

“Don’t stop.” My voice cracked.

“Just… don’t stop.”