I do.
Even… even if you might lose me too?
Her bottom lip started trembling, and Raine’s jaw hardened for a moment before he spoke out loud. His voice had never sounded so assured or so clear before.
“I need you to hear me, Frelina. I am a fucking idiot. But this idiot loves you so much. I think I have ever since that Lakes of Mirrors place. I love your vulnerability. I love that you want to live and feel and experience everything. You brought me back to life. You made me feel again, even when I fought it with everything in me. I will not change my mind. I will never push you away again. I… I don’t know what will happen now, but I promise I will love you with every last breath I take in this realm, and when I move on to the next… I’ll love you there too.”
Raine searched her eyes, reading the question she didn’t want to ask but that she couldn’t keep locked down.
“I’ll always love her, and I know she knows that.” A smile brightened Raine’s features, the midday sun behind him making his hair glitter. “I… I never thought I could love another again, not like that at least, but I realized love… it’s a choice. You can choose to let it break you, or… you can choose to let it heal you. I choose to love you, Frelina. I choose to live with you. I choose you.”
Frelina wound her arms around his neck and leaned her forehead against his, hearing his heart thump across the roaring waters beneath them.
“I choose you too,” she whispered.
Chapter 32
Lessia
She never wanted to let go of him.
She never wanted this moment to end.
She never wanted to forget the happiness rushing through her every vein as Merrick carried her through the streets. The dancing and chatting people must have heard Merrick’s declaration, as they cast appreciative words their way and cheered when Lessia waved back.
And she especially never wished for the image of Merrick’s wide smile as he held her closer, carefully making his way down a weaving path lined with white stone, to fade.
His grin was so pure. So happy. So different from anything she’d ever seen brighten his features.
Lessia laughed as Merrick placed his tongue between his teeth, his eyes narrowing on the steepening path, and as his eyes flicked to hers, a thrill raced down her back, a burning need building in her core.
Merrick groaned—probably smelling her—before hesprinted the final steps down to the glittering pool of black water, one of his hands sneaking up to cup her breast under her tunic, wrangling a moan from her throat.
She didn’t even bother scolding him as he growled “Get the fuck out” to some poor Fae getting ready to go in. They blanched before scrambling up with their belongings and rushing past Lessia and Merrick to give them privacy.
This was their night. Hers and Merrick’s. She knew it was his gift to her before they started the long journey—before they yet again had to fight for their lives. And for once… she wanted it all.
Needed it. Didn’t want to think about anyone else but him. Didn’t want to think about the friends they’d left behind. The family. The war that was closing in on the world she loved. The threat of death that hung heavy over him and her—the tiredness she ignored in her limbs and mind, which she knew would scare her again come sunup.
For tonight…
There was only him.
Merrick seemed to be of the same mind, because as he set her down by the edge of the lake, his fingers laced with hers as their reflections in the still surface looked back at them, and he whispered, “You and me.”
Tears stung her eyes at that, but they were happy ones.
It was him and her. Merrick and Elessia.
His eyes met hers in the mirrored surface, and she wondered how she’d ever missed it, how she’d ever thought that she’d loved before. It was so clear theybelonged together—that the two people with the stars and the large moon looming above them were one.
She didn’t even flinch when more figures appeared behind them.
Merrick’s parents stood behind his right shoulder. Thissian and his mate behind her left side. So many others spread out across the hillside, standing across every few feet of the stone path and the grassy slope.
They all smiled at her and Merrick, and the acceptance—a feeling she’d never felt before tonight, but which had started to fill her in that tavern when people came up to her and thanked her for what she’d done—trickled through her body like the water she hoped would soon seep across her skin.
She felt their love,their pride, their… hope, like it was her own.
