I should’ve let you go. I should’ve married your sister and kept the peace. That’s what everyone expected. It would’ve been easier, cleaner, quieter. But the first time you stood in front of me — eyes sharp, voice trembling with rage — I knew I was already lost.

You hate me for what I did. For taking you. For choosing you without ever asking if you wanted to be chosen. And I won’t apologize for it.

Because I can’t breathe without you.

I worship you. I crave you like something rotten in my blood. I’ve killed for less than the way you look at me — that disgust in your eyes — and I’d burn entire cities just to see you soften for me once. Just once.

But you don’t soften.

Even after the wedding, you still fight me. You spit venom at me across our dinner table. You slap my hand away when I try to touch you, yet you shiver when I whisper your name. You tell me you hate me — but you stay. You stay, and you burn me alive every damn day.

Sometimes I wonder if you realize what I’ve become because of you. I’m not just in love with you — I’m ruined by you. I think about you when I should be thinking about war. I dream about you when I’m covered in someone else’s blood.

And when you let me touch you — I do it carefully. Gently. Like you’re something holy I was never meant to have. Even when you curse me, I keep my voice soft with you. I would cut my own throat before I ever hurt you.

You think you can break me by resisting. But every time you fight me, I love you more.

So go ahead. Hate me. Hit me. Claw at me. I’ll still come back to you every night, kneel at your feet, and call you mine.

One day, you’ll stop fighting me. Or maybe you never will. Either way, I’ll love you until it kills me.