What mattered was me.
She and the guys had chosen to stand by Wolfe.
Which meant I had no one standing with me.
Now, I sat here with my journal spread across my lap. My only companion.
It wasn't that I expected to find answers hidden in the familiar handwriting, or see how I'd survived before. I just needed something, anything, to keep my mind from tearing itself apart.
I’d reached for it just before sunrise and started turning pages without really reading them.
With a sigh, I tore my gaze away from the window and flicked to the next page of my journal. I landed on one where I’d tried to draw a cluster of lanterns in the sky. It was from the Lumiere festival, on the last night of the Phantom Moon’s passing. It was also the night Wolfe and I had gotten together.
I stalled, remembering all the things I’d written on the next few pages. Days ago, when I reached this part in the safety of my room, I’d lingered on it. Lingered on how I’d spoken of Wolfe, of my heart, of love.
It was so beautiful I’d read it over and over again.
Honestly, of all the things I’d written, this part was what convinced me to find him.
I’d felt like I’d gotten to know the girl who’d written it, that part of myself I could no longer feel.
The drawing of the lanterns and the words beneath, describing the special night, felt like poison to me now.
My hands shook as I turned the page and kept flicking forward. I had every intention to keep skimming, but then my eyes caught on the very passage that had sent me on this fool's journey.
I woke this morning in Wolfe’s arms, and I’ve realized something that has terrified and thrilled me in equal measure.
I am completely, irrevocably in love with him.
Not the careful, cautious love I thought I understood. This is something wild and consuming, something that makes me feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall. When he looks at me, really looks at me, I see forever reflected back in his eyes. I see a future I never dared to dream.
I know, with absolute certainty, that I will never love anyone the way I love Wolfe Nightblade. This isn't the kind of love that comes twice in a lifetime. This is the love that poets write about, the kind that burns through your very soul and changes every part of you.
He is my beginning and my end, my salvation and my destruction. And I would choose him, again and again, in every lifetime, in every world.
I’ve given him my heart completely. And I know he'll guard it with his life.
I slammed the journal shut, my chest heaving as if I'd just run a mile.
What a fool I'd been. What an absolute, starry-eyed fool.
My salvation and my destruction.I'd written those words with such conviction, such breathless certainty. As if I'd discovered some profound truth about love instead of walking straight into a trap.
He'll guard it with his life.
I let out a harsh laugh that sounded more like a sob. Guard my heart? The devil who'd just trapped me here against my will? The devil who'd caged me with shadows and called it protection? Who spoke of fighting for me and calling me his while holding me prisoner?
I must have been completely delusional to fall for someone like that.
And this journal entry—this breathless, romantic declaration—it had convinced me to seek him out. To believe there was something worth finding.
Look where that had gotten me—trapped, alone, with no way home and my family in danger.
The girl who'd written those words had been a fool. And I'd been an even bigger fool for trusting her.
Wolfe had chosen to keep me. No discussion. No consent.
And telling me he’d figure something out to protect my family from here was of little comfort.
