The sound echoed through her chest. Her breath hitched before she could stop it.”What are you—”
He didn’t answer. His hands were already on her coat, fingers closing around the lapels. He stripped it from her shoulders in one smooth motion, decisive and unapologetic, peeling it away like armor she no longer needed. The coat slid down her arms and clung.
Her pulse spiked. Heat flared low and sharp, completely at odds with the cool resolve she’d built around herself.”Alaric?”
He held her gaze, light eyes blazing now, no restraint left in them. “I have two things to say to you.”
“Only two?” she asked, awry edge sneaking in because she needed it, because hope was so incredibly dangerous.
“Only two,” he confirmed gravely.He stepped closer, close enough that his warmth swept over her, close enough that leaving was no longer an option he’d allow. His hand lifted, not to touch her, but to brace against the bedpost beside her, fingers flexing as if he needed the solid edge of it to keep himself where hewas.
“First and foremost,” he said, voice roughened by something raw and unpracticed, “I love you.”
The words hit her like a blow. Her chest tightened so abruptly she had to brace herself, one hand joining his on the bedpost. Air stalled in her lungs, sharp and insufficient. She’d imagined this moment a hundred ways and none of them had preparedher for the way he said it—plain, unguarded, without leverage, like something he was offering without armor or escape.
“I haven’t said that to anyone before,” he continued. “I’m saying it to you because it’s true. You are my one. My only. My mate.”
Hope surged despite her, tumbling and eager and terrifying. It cracked the armor she’d been holding together by sheer will. She swallowed hard.”And the second thing?” she asked, because she needed to hear it. Because love without belief would still breakher.
His hands came back to her then, gripping her coat sleeves where they’d fallen halfway down her arms. He ripped the fabric free and tossed it aside like the suitcase, leaving her standing there bare of defenses, heart hammering.
“I don’t give a fuck about proof,” he said.The words landed clean and absolute.”I was wrong to agree with Magnus,” he went on, each word deliberate. “I was wrong to doubt you. And I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
Her knees threatened to buckle. She reached for him, fingers curling into the front of his shirt as the truth finally sankin.
He believed her.
Without proof. Without conditions. Without escape hatches.
She looked up at him, eyes burning. “You’re certain?”
His thumb brushed the inside of her palm, right over the faint thrum of the Brand. “Completely.”
He pulled her into his arms and a single word followed, quiet and devastating: “Mine.”
The word settled into her bones.
He didn’t give her time to question it. His hand slid from her palm to the back of her neck, not forcing, not hesitating, just holding her there as his mouth came down on hers. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tempestuous either. It was certain. It carried everything he’d just said, everything he’d chosen.
Sera made a small sound she didn’t recognize as her own and leaned into him, fingers fisting in his shirt as if she needed proof he was real, that this wasn’t some last kindness before goodbye. His mouth moved against hers with unmistakable hunger, deepening only when she answered, only when she chose itback.
The bed was close behind her. She felt it against the backs of her legs before she realized he’d guided her there. Not rushed. Never rushed. He broke the kiss just long enough to look at her, his gaze stripping her bare in a way that had nothing to do with clothes.
“Tell me to stop,” he said quietly.
She shook her head, breathless. “Don’t.”
That was all ittook.
He kissed her again and this time the restraint burned off him in a slow, deliberate way that made her ache. His mouth took hers deeper, harder, his hand tightening at the back of her neck as if he needed to keep her right there, exactly where she was. The heat of him surrounded her, the promisein his body unmistakable, and the awareness sent a sharp, needy shiver throughher.
His hands slid over her with intent, not hurried but thorough, mapping familiar places and lingering where her breath caught. Every touch saidI know you, every pause saidstay. When she arched into him, he made a low sound against her mouth, approval rasping and unmistakable.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
She did. The intensity in his gaze made her pulse race, made her seen down to thebone.
“Mine,” he said again, softer this time, like a vow. “I’ve got you.”
