A constellation of claims, mapped across my body like stars.
"They'll be back soon." Vale's voice was certain, his silver eyes fixed on the darkness where Kaelan and Riven had disappeared hours ago. The bioluminescence around us had shifted, the colors deepening as the night wore on. "The witch's trench is far, but they're fast. Faster than anything else in the ocean. Before dawn, you'll have what you need."
"And then what?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, needing to know what came next even if I was afraid of the answer.
"And then you have more time." Thane's smile was watery but real, his golden-brown eyes bright despite the tears. "And we have more time to convince you that staying is the right choice. That choosing us isn't giving something up—it's gaining everything."
"You don't have to convince me." The words came out before I could stop them, surprising even me with their certainty. "I already know it's the right choice. I already know this is where I belong, that you're... you're everything." I took a shuddering breath, my chest tight with emotion. "I'm just... scared to take it. Scared to believe it. Scared that the moment I let myself have this, it'll disappear."
"We know." Vale's lips brushed my forehead, gentle as a prayer. "We'll wait. However long you need. However many times you need us to prove we're not going anywhere." His silver eyes met mine, and for once, there was no teasing in them. Just honesty, raw and vulnerable. "We'll be here. Always."
I let them hold me in the glowing dark, the bioluminescent garden pulsing softly around us like a living heartbeat. Let myself believe that maybe—just maybe—I was allowed to have this.
That maybe forever wasn't such a frightening word after all. Deep down, in the part of me that had learned long ago not to trust good things, I wondered what price Kaelan and Riven were about to pay.
And whether I could live with myself when I found out.
Chapter Seventeen
KAELAN
The ocean had never felt so vast.
I cut through the water beside Riven, our tails propelling us deeper and deeper into the black. The bioluminescence faded behind us, the familiar blues and greens giving way to absolute darkness—the kind of dark that pressed against your eyes like a physical weight, that made you question whether you'd ever seen light at all.
I didn't need light. I'd swum these depths for centuries. I knew every current, every trench, every cold pocket of water that marked the boundaries between the shallow world and the deep places where only ancient things dared to go. What I didn't know—what I couldn't seem to understand no matter how many times I turned it over in my mind—was how a single human woman had become the center of my entire existence.
She was supposed to be a curiosity.
The thought surfaced unbidden as we descended, the pressure building around us in a way that would have crushed a human's bones to powder. Riven swam beside me in silence, hisscarred face set in grim determination, his golden eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. He hadn't spoken since we left the garden. He didn't need to. I could feel his rage through the pack bond—a constant, thrumming fury that vibrated between us like a plucked string.
A human who could swim. A mystery to be solved and then forgotten.
I remembered the first time I saw her. Floating in the water like she belonged there, her hair spreading around her face like kelp in the current, her eyes wide with wonder instead of fear. She'd looked at me—at all of us—and she hadn't screamed. Hadn't tried to flee. She'd just... looked. Like she was seeing something beautiful instead of something monstrous.
Now she's the center of everything. The axis around which my entire existence turns.
I'd lived for centuries. I'd watched empires rise from nothing and crumble back to dust. I'd seen the ocean change—warming, cooling, filling with strange new creatures and losing old ones to the endless march of time. I'd watched everything I knew shift and transform and fade away, and through it all, I'd remained. Constant. Unchanging. Ancient.
None of it mattered. None of it had ever mattered, I realized now. I'd been existing, not living. Swimming through the centuries like a ghost, going through the motions of survival without ever truly feeling alive.
Until her.
Until Lily, with her haunted eyes and her brave heart and her body that still flinched sometimes when we reached for her too quickly. Until Lily, who had been sold like property and treated like less than nothing and still—still—found it in herself to trust us. To let us braid her hair and scent her skin and kiss her like she was the most precious thing in the entire ocean.
I've lived for centuries. I've seen empires rise and fall. I've watched the ocean change, watched species come and go, watched everything I knew crumble to dust.
None of it matters. Only her.
"You're thinking too loud." Riven's voice cut through the darkness, rough and impatient. His golden eyes glowed faintly in the black—the only light for miles in any direction.
"I'm thinking the appropriate amount." I kept my voice even, controlled. The pack alpha couldn't afford to show weakness, not even to his packmate. Especially not now, when everything felt like it was balanced on a knife's edge.
"You're thinking about her." Riven said it like an accusation, his scarred lips pulling back from his teeth in something that wasn't quite a smile. "About what she said. About the fact that she needs more time."
"Yes." There was no point in denying it. Riven could feel my emotions through the bond as clearly as I could feel his.
"It's not a rejection." His voice softened slightly, some of the sharp edges smoothing out. "She's scared. She's been running for so long she doesn't know how to stop. But she wants us, Kaelan. I can smell it on her. I can taste it in her kiss. She wants us so badly it's tearing her apart."
