Blade's phone buzzed as I was heading back downstairs. I didn't mean to notice, but we passed in the hallway, and his reaction was impossible to miss. He glanced at the screen, and his face went carefully, deliberately blank. The kind of blank that meant the opposite of nothing.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"Fine." He was already moving past me, phone disappearing into his pocket. "Just... something I need to handle."
"Blade—"
"It's fine, Kai." He paused at the top of the stairs, not looking at me. "Ancient history. Nothing to worry about."
He was gone before I could push further. I watched him go, remembering our conversation at the claiming ceremony.Some people leave marks. Even when they're gone.
Whatever he'd just seen on that phone, it wasn't nothing. And ancient history, in my experience, had a way of refusing to stay buried.
The ride was everything Axel had promised.
We each took our own bikes—his rumbling Harley and my Kawasaki, finally restored to full glory. The violet LED highlights I'd stripped off months ago were back, glowing beneath the frame like foxfire. No more hiding. No more fear.
We rode side by side, the afternoon sun warm on our backs, engines harmonizing as we climbed the mountain roads. He took the lead on the switchbacks, leaning into curves with the confidence of a man who'd been riding since before he could drive. I followed, matching his rhythm, learning the language of his body through the bike.
Then the road straightened, and I opened my throttle.
His laugh carried across the wind as I shot past him. A challenge. An invitation. He accepted—engine roaring as he pulled alongside, then ahead, then we were neck and neck, racing toward a horizon that belonged to us.
"Show-off!" he shouted.
"Learned from the best!"
The trees blurred. The world narrowed to speed and sound and the man beside me. We traded the lead a dozen times, pushing each other, grinning like idiots, drunk on freedom and the open road.
When Axel finally signaled to pull off, I was breathless—not from fear, but from joy. The overlook was the same one he'd taken me to three months ago. The night he'd told me about his father, about Daniels, about all the broken pieces he'd been carrying. The valley spread below us, vast and golden in the fading light.
"I remember this place." I said, killing my engine.
"I remember everything about that night." He swung off his bike, crossed to me. "This is where I started falling in love with you. I didn't know it then—didn't have words for it. But looking back, this was the moment."
"Axel..."
"Let me finish." He took my hands, and there was something in his expression I'd never seen. Nervous. Almost scared. "I spent years thinking I was broken. That the thing inside me—the thing my father tried to beat out—made me wrong. Made me unworthy of love."
"You were never?—"
"Let me finish," he repeated, softer. "Then you came along. And you didn't try to fix me. You just... saw me. The real me. And you loved him anyway."
His hand went to his pocket. My breath caught.
"I told you I'd propose," he said, pulling out a small, deep purple velvet box. "I told you it would be embarrassingly romantic. Probably involve a motorcycle."
"Axel—"
He dropped to one knee. "Kai Nakamura." His voice was steady, but his hands were shaking. "You saved my life in a parking lot and then kept saving it every day after. You made me brave enough to be myself. You gave me a future, a reason to believe in tomorrow." He opened the box. Inside, a simple platinum band gleamed in the fading light. "Will you marry me? For real this time. Legal. Forever."
I was crying. When had I started crying? "Yes." The word came out broken, laughing, ridiculous. "Yes, you idiot. Of course yes."
He slid the ring onto my finger. Rose to his feet. Pulled me into a kiss that tasted like tears and joy and everything we'd built together.
"I love you," he said against my mouth.
"I love you too." I pulled back, looked at the ring—the weight of it, the promise. "This is really happening."
