How unbearably inane.

He’d found the one thing in the world he refused to harm, even at the cost of his own injury. His own life, perhaps, meager, wretched life that it was. His heart, professionally numb, had opened despite his wishes and curled itself with feline unconcern around a woman with no more instinct for self-preservation than a moth.

And yet, here she was—reckless, fragile, and impossibly stubborn, throwing herself against the world as if she were something unbreakable.

“Ma...