From the back: “I’m not promising shit.”
She laughs, and I spin her out and back, loving the way she feels in my arms.
The song changes. I hand her off to Abaddon for a dance—he’s been waiting patiently—and step aside to get a drink.
From this vantage point, I can see the whole room. My brothers and their families. The vampires celebrating their alliance. Phoenix and Layden in the center of it all, so shy and barely able to look at one another.
And Lo-Ren, laughing at something Abaddon said, glowing like a star.
My family. Our family.
A year ago, I thought I was doomed to spend eternity trapped with my greatest enemy, cleaning up his messes, never having anything of my own.
Now?
Now I have everything I never knew I wanted.
“Not bad, brother,” Remus says quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“This. All of it. You were right—communication does help.”
I nearly choke on my wine. “Are you actually admitting I was right about something?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
But I can feel his contentment. His satisfaction with how things have turned out.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “For choosing differently. Up there in space.”
“Thank you for not being an insufferable prick about it afterward.”
“I’m always somewhat insufferable.”
“True.”
Lo-Ren catches my eye from across the room and gestures for me to come dance with her again.
I set down my glass and head toward her, toward our future, toward everything we’ve built together.
And as I take her hand and pull her close, I think:
This is what winning looks like.
Not defeating my brother. Not having sole control. Not being alone with all the power I could ever want.
This. Connection. Love that multiplies. Cooperation instead of competition.
A woman who chose us both and refuses to let us choose anything less than happiness.
A brother who saw me as worth saving even when he could have been free.
A future stretching out before us, unlimited and full of possibility.
I spent five thousand years believing I was trapped.
Turns out, I was just waiting.
