Katherine's chest was tight, her heart hammering against her breastbone. She could not have imagined the sincerity and seriousness in Eward's voice. As long as she had known him, he had been everything but genuine and dedicated to anything but himself, and it seemed that now he had undergone a dramatic change of heart. Perhaps it was Lysander's return humbling him, or his ways finally catching up with him, but Katherine could not contemplate the thought that it might have had something to do with her. That, in many ways, terrified her.
"Don't say that," Katherine murmured, lowering her hands to the base of his neck at his shoulders. "I hope it will never come to that." That was indeed true, but the thought that anyone, let alone her childhood enemy, would give his life for her was nearly too much to bear.