I gazed up at his face—flushed, raw, stripped of every mask he’d ever worn—and saw a man completely undone.
"Rocco Palazzo, you have always been mine."
My fangs pierced the tender olive skin of his neck, breaking through like needles through silk. His blood—metallic, sweet, and warm as summer rain—coated my tongue.
I drank not from hunger but from possession, from the primal need to mark what belonged to me. Waves of crimson pleasure crashed through my body, setting every nerve ending aflame. I moaned his name against his throat, my fingers digging into his shoulders as the ecstasy pulsed through me like liquid fire.
I cried out again as I arched my hips, taking him deeper inside me, feeling the delicious stretch of my body accommodating his.
Rocco's muscles tensed beneath my fingertips, his back arching like a drawn bow as he spilled himself with a guttural moan that vibrated through my chest. He collapsed onto me, his weight both crushing and comforting, his heartbeat thundering against mine as fine tremors coursed through his sweat-slicked skin.
The room settled around us. Our ragged breathing. The creak of the bed. The distant murmur of Rose’s voice through the wall—and I realized with a flush that there was no way they hadn’t heard us.
I didn’t care.
Something had shifted inside me—not just the bond, not just the physical. Something deeper. I felt cracked open and whole at the same time, like I’d been holding my breath for two years and had finally, finally exhaled.
We lay there, our limbs tangled like vines, my head nestled against the hollow of his throat where I could feel his pulse gradually slowing. The comforter beneath us was damp with sweat, bunched and twisted from the wreckage we’d made of the bed.
Through the thin walls, Rose and Valentin had surely heard every gasp, every whispered plea— but the thought only sent a delicious shiver down my spine. In the amber glow of the bedside lamp, I traced the contours of Rocco's chest with my fingertip, marking him. He was mine now, completely. And I was his.
The words settled into my chest like a key turning in a lock. After two years of aching for this—of imagining it, mourning it, convincing myself it would never happen—the reality was quieter than I’d expected.
No fireworks.
No triumph.
Just a deep, steady warmth spreading through me like sunlight filling a room that had been dark for too long.
It wasn’t what I’d imagined. It was better. Because it was real.
He finally broke the silence, his dark eyes searching mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. Slowly, he lifted my hand from where it rested against his chest. He turned it over, pressing his lips to my palm—a kiss so gentle, so reverent, it made my heart stutter.
Then he pressed my hand against his cheek and held it there.
"I was a coward." His eyes glistened in the lamplight, raw and unguarded in a way I’d never seen before. "I pushed you away because I didn’t want to believe that we were fated mates. Ithought the fates were wrong. I was a prince and I thought I was better.”
I tensed. All the pain came back.
“But then when I fell, when I hurt my mom, no one believed in me but you.” He lowered his head. “My eyes were opened. I was the fool. You were the one who was better than me. I was the monster, not you. If I hurt you like I did my mother, I would never forgive myself. So I pushed you away. Stayed away from you to keep you safe."
My eyes burned. Two years. Two years of hating myself, of wondering what was so wrong with me that my own mate couldn't stand the sight of me. And the answer wasn't that I was broken. It was that he thought he was.
I didn't know whether to hit him or hold him.
His jaw flexed beneath my palm. I felt him swallow.
"Every day I stayed away from you was the hardest thing I've ever done. And every day, I told myself it was the right thing." He turned his head and pressed another kiss into my palm, his lips lingering. "It wasn't. It was the cruelest thing I've ever done, and I've done some terrible things."
His eyes found mine again, and what I saw in them nearly shattered me. Not the mask. Not the prince. Not the swagger or the walls or the careful indifference he'd hidden behind for two years. Just Rocco—raw, terrified, and completely open in a way I'd never seen before.
"I promise you, I will never deny you again." Each word was deliberate, heavy with the weight of a vow. "I will never push you away. I will never make you feel like you're not enough." His thumb traced across my knuckles, his grip tightening like he was afraid I'd slip through his fingers. "You're everything to me, Selena. You always have been. I was just too broken to deserve you."
My throat closed up. Tears blurred my vision again, but I blinked them back. I'd cried enough tonight. Instead, I curled my fingers against his cheek and pulled him down to me.
"Don't you ever decide what I deserve again," I said against his lips. "That's my choice. Not yours."
Something shuddered through him—relief, maybe, or the weight of two years finally lifting off his shoulders.
