Tomorrow we either break it or I die trying.
The knock at my door is firm. Three solid strikes, no hesitation. The knock of someone who's already decided what he's doing and isn't asking permission.
I know who it is before I answer.
I open the door anyway.
Rhystan stands in the corridor, and he looks like he's been through a war. Dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes, stubble shadowing his jaw in a way that shouldn't be attractivebut absolutely is, hair falling across his forehead in disordered waves that make my fingers itch to push it back. His shirt is unlaced at the throat, revealing the strong column of his neck and the edge of the scar where I bit him during our first claiming.
But he holds himself like a king. Shoulders back, spine straight, golden eyes burning with something that isn't defeat.
"I'm not spending the night before you face this sitting alone in my study." Low and rough, the words scraping out like he's been practicing them. "Not when I could be here."
Not asking. Telling me what he's decided. And despite everything—or maybe because of it—there's something almost relieving about that. The alpha confidence I fell for in the first place, before I knew what it would cost me.
I step back from the doorway, letting him in. "I couldn't sleep either."
He moves past me into the candlelit room, and I'm suddenly very aware that I'm wearing only a thin nightshift, the fabric doing nothing to hide the swell of my belly or the shape of my body beneath. His eyes track down and then deliberately back up, heat flaring in them before he banks it.
We stand there in the flickering light, a few feet of charged air between us. The bond pulses, heavy with everything we're not saying.
"I'm going to survive this," I tell him, not sure which of us I'm trying to convince. "The warrior omega bloodline. The contamination already changing me. I'm built for this in ways no one else is."
"You are." No hesitation. No qualification. No attempt to argue me out of it or plead for another option. Just acceptance of what I've decided, and faith that I can do it. "You're the strongest person I've ever known. If anyone can take three centuries ofdivine rage and metabolize it into something survivable, it's you."
The words land somewhere in my chest, warming places I didn't know were cold.
"And you'll be there," I say. Not a question.
"I'll be there." His voice drops lower. "Whatever happens tomorrow, you're not doing this alone. I'll be in that circle with you, bleeding into the silver, speaking the words alongside you. If it goes wrong—" He stops. Takes a breath. "If it goes wrong, I'll be the last thing you see. Not stone walls. Not strangers. Me."
I should argue. Should tell him to stay back, to protect himself, to think about the children who'll need a father if I don't make it.
But the truth is, I'm terrified. And some treacherous part of me—the part that still loves him despite everything—wants him beside me when I walk into the fire.
"If I die," I say instead, "you raise them both. Our son and our daughter. You break this cycle. You make sure he never becomes what your bloodline made you—a weapon for a god who doesn't deserve worship."
"You're not going to die."
"Promise me anyway."
He closes the distance between us in two strides—close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that his scent fills my lungs and makes my head swim. His hand comes up to cup my jaw, tilting my face toward his, and I don't pull away.
"I promise." Rough and absolute. "If the worst happens, I'll raise them. I'll break the cycle. I'll be the father they deserve instead of the monster my bloodline tried to make me." His thumb traces along my cheekbone, feather-light. "But you're not going to die, Kess. I won't allow it."
"You can't control?—"
"Watch me." His eyes burn into mine, gold and fierce and utterly certain. "I've spent three hundred years letting this curse take everything from me. Forty-seven omegas. Any chance at a normal life. The ability to touch someone without wondering if I'm killing them." His voice drops even lower. "I'm not letting it take you too. I don't care what I have to do. I don't care what it costs. You're walking out of that ritual alive, and I will burn down the heavens themselves to make it happen."
The intensity of it steals my breath. This isn't pleading. Isn't bargaining. It's a declaration of war—against the curse, against the god who placed it, against death itself if that's what it takes.
I should step back. Should put distance between us before I do something I can't take back.
Instead I lean into his touch, just for a moment. Let myself feel the warmth of his palm against my cheek, the steady strength of him, the bond singing between us with something that feels dangerously like hope.
"I love you." The words come out rough, dragged from somewhere I've been keeping them locked away. "I hate that I do. I hate what you did and I don't know if I'll ever fully trust you again. But I love you anyway. I've loved you since you looked at me like I was the answer to a question you'd been asking for three hundred years."
His breath catches. Something cracks open in his expression—not weakness, but the kind of vulnerability that takes more strength than armor.
