“We’re not doubting your words,” Ezekial assures, but his words are also too soft. “But we…” He pauses, eyes darting to the others. “We just need to hear it again.”
Even now, knowing we’re bonded, knowing the painful ache that comes whenever the distance is too far—they’re still offering me a choice.
Like it hasn’t already been decided. Like I haven’t already chosen.
The fact they’re giving me this, a chance to walk away, after everything we’ve shared, everything we are—only makes my decision more certain.
“Whatever came before doesn’t matter,” I say, smiling softly. “I know where I belong, and it’s with the four of you.”
The tension shatters all at once, like a tide finally returning to sea.
Ezekial exhales, dragging a hand down his face. Julien’s expression flickers into something heartbreakingly tender. Kane’s jaw unclenches, grey speckles softening his gaze like a storm losing strength. Sai closes his eyes and mutters something under his breath.
When he looks at me again, he’s leaning forwards with that familiar wicked smirk… but his eyes warily flick to the others.
Kane gives a single nod.
Without another word, Sai reaches into his jacket and pulls out a small box, setting it in front of me.
“What’s this?” My hand hovers near it.
“Something we made,” Kane says.
I open the lid—and still.
Nestled in black velvet lies a pendant, a gem at its heart, alive with midnight blue and crackling veins of silver. Shadows dance inside it with threads of metallic red swirling through the core—blood,I realise.
Their blood. Their essence. Their power. All of it, woventogether.
Not just a gift. It’s a piece of them.
My fingers tremble as I reach for it, slipping it out to feel the weight of it in my palm—warm, solid, grounding.
It feels like protection, power, a promise. No—more than that.
A vow.
“You’ve been wearing our things.” Sai shrugs. “So we just thought…”
“You should have something from all of us,” Ezekial finishes.
Julien leans over the table. “No matter what you choose, Jasmine, this is yours.”
A cold shadow slithers around my ankle as Kane says, “We’re yours.”
My vision blurs at the edges as I run my thumb over the smooth pendant. I can’t look away from it.
“I didn’t get you anything,” I whisper.
“That dress gave us plenty,” Sai mumbles, releasing the last thread of tension.
I laugh, still staring at the pendant, warm in my palm. “Can someone help me put—”
A chair clatters to the ground and another scrapes, my gaze darts up to a violent blur of blue and silver—too fast to track—until two figures emerge, revealing Sai in a headlock.
“Mine,” Ezekial growls, tightening his hold until Sai taps on his bulging bicep.
“Still wasn’t hard enough.”Sai rubs his throat, but he’s smirking as his eyes catch mine. “I let him have it.”
