And we, Tessa and I, remain free.
Bound to this place, yes.Tied to each other, absolutely.But free in all the ways that matter.
Free to love.
Free to live.
Free to write our own story, prophecy be damned.
“Nobody fucks with the Kings,” I murmur into her hair.
“Nobody fucks with the Kings,” she agrees sleepily.
And as sleep begins to drag us down, her warmth pressed against me and the first pale edge of sunrise bleeds across the horizon, a realization unfurls in the quiet space between one breath and the next.For more than five hundred years I have wandered this world like a shadow wearing a man’s skin, moving through centuries with nothing tethering me but hunger, violence, and the illusion of purpose.I’ve chased meaning through battlefields, through kingdoms long rotted to dust, through the ruins of every life I tried and failed to claim as mine.
But the truth settles into me now, slow and undeniable.
My purpose was never out there.
It was always here, in this bed, in this moment, in the fragile, mortal heartbeat pressed to my chest.
It’s her.
Not a prophecy etched into forgotten stone or a destiny woven before my birth, but the way she clings to me even in sleep, as if her soul recognizes mine on a level deeper than breath or blood.The way her scent wraps around me like a vow.
Home isn’t a place, it’s the decision to stay when the world tries to tear us apart.
Purpose isn’t fate, it’s the choice to fight for someone even when the odds are merciless.
And guardianship...isn’t granted by magic or ancient bloodlines.It’s forged in moments like this, where love becomes a weapon sharper than anything I’ve ever carried.
Love.
Dark, consuming, unyielding.
A bond I never sought, yet now would burn the world to protect.And as she drifts deeper into sleep, fingers clutching at my chest as though even unconscious she refuses to let me go, one truth anchors itself in the very marrow of my immortal bones:
This woman is my beginning and my ending.
My sanctuary and my ruin.
The only force in existence strong enough to make a monster kneel.
And I kneel willingly.
