“What?”
“I want to try being…” I struggle for the right word. “Partners. Equals, in everything that matters. I want you beside me, not behind me. I want your voice in council meetings, your input on decisions, your hand in reshaping everything I’ve built.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I feel her skepticism through the bond—not rejection, just honest doubt.
“You know you’ll probably fail at that,” she says. “Seven centuries of being the one in charge. Seven centuries of taking what you want without asking. You’re not going to become an equal partner overnight.”
“I know.”
“You’ll slip. You’ll make decisions without consulting me. You’ll fall back into old patterns.”
“Probably.”
“And I’ll call you on it. Every time.”
“I’m counting on it.”
She tilts her head back to look at me, searching my face for something. Whatever she finds makes her smile—small, tentative, but real.
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s try. Partners. Equals. Knowing we’ll both fail at it sometimes, and we’ll keep trying anyway.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“And in the bedroom?”
I tighten my arms around her, letting her feel the possessiveness I’m not even trying to hide. “In the bedroom, you’re mine. My omega. My claim. That doesn’t change.”
“Good.” She presses a kiss to my chest. “I don’t want that to change.”
The knot finally softens enough for me to slip out of her. She makes a small sound of loss, and I watch my seed spill from her swollen pussy onto the blankets beneath us.
“We should clean up,” she says, but makes no move to do so.
“We should.” I pull her closer instead. “In a minute.”
“In a minute,” she agrees.
We lie there as the morning light filters through the barn slats, tangled together in hay and blankets and the beginnings of something that might be love.
It’s not forgiveness. It’s not absolution. It’s not even trust, not yet.
But it’s a start.
And for the first time in seven centuries, I feel like I might actually become someone worth starting with.Chapter 27: Hannah
Stone Court looks different when you enter it by choice.
The mountain rises before us as we crest the final ridge—all black granite and glittering crystal, carved directly into the peaks by creatures who measure time in millennia. I’ve seen it before, of course. Saw it the day I arrived as a tribute, exhausted and terrified and determined to die with dignity.
But I didn’t reallyseeit then. Didn’t notice the way the fortress seems to grow out of the mountain itself, as if the stone simply decided to become a castle. Didn’t see the waterfalls that cascade down the eastern face, or the gardens carved into impossible ledges, or the way the setting sun turns the whole structure to flame.
It’s beautiful.
It might be home. Someday. If I let it.
The thought settles into my chest alongside the bond, and I’m surprised to find it doesn’t terrify me as much as it should.
“Ready?” Karax asks, his massive hand warm around mine.
