And the woman I love is safe in my arms.
I land on the highest platform. Shift back to human form with Aisling still cradled against my chest. She stirs, blinks up at me with those fierce green eyes—tired but alive. So alive.
“We’re home.”
“Home.” She tests the word. Then smiles—small, exhausted, and absolutely devastating. “I like the sound of that.”
I carry her toward my chambers. The claiming mark on my chest—incomplete, waiting—pulses with anticipation.
TWENTY
AISLING
Once we’re settled, I sleep for sixteen hours.
When I finally surface, the light slanting through Rurik’s chamber windows has shifted from dawn gold to late afternoon amber. My body aches in places I didn’t know existed. My fire feels like embers instead of flame—present but banked, recovering from being pushed past every limit I thought I had.
Rurik is pressed against my back. His arm drapes heavy across my waist, his breath warm and steady against my hair. Even in sleep, he holds me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
I don’t move. Don’t want to break this moment—the quiet after the storm, the peace after the war. Valdris is dead. The Relic is destroyed.
Niamh is okay. She was given something to help her forget everything she saw. Once she was sent home, I called her to make sure she was okay. It was strange to hear her tale of a car accident that never happened. She’s safe. We’re safe. That’s all that matters. For the first time since I woke screaming in the infirmary weeks ago, nothing is hunting me.
Well. Almost nothing.
The incomplete claiming mark on my chest pulses. Rurik’s mark, waiting to be finished. It started in the mountain during the final battle—fire meeting fire, his power beginning to twine with mine. But we were interrupted. Attacked. Nearly killed.
Now there’s nothing standing in our way.
His arm tightens around me. “You’re thinking too loud.”
“How can you tell?”
“Your fire.” His lips brush the back of my neck, sending heat cascading down my spine. “It flickers when you’re thinking. Steadies when you decide something.”
“And right now?”
“Right now, it’s doing both.” He rolls me onto my back, bracing himself above me. Those wild eyes find mine—fierce and wanting and unbearably tender. “What are you deciding, Aisling?”
I reach up. Trace the scar along his jaw. The stubble rasping against my fingertips. The hard line of his mouth that softens when he looks at me.
“Finish it.” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “The claiming. I want it done. I want—“ I swallow. Force myself to say what I mean. “I want to be yours. Completely. No more waiting.”
His pupils blow wide. His breath catches. “Aisling.”
“Don’t argue with me.” I hook my leg around his hip, pull him closer. “Don’t tell me it’s dangerous or that I should rest or that we have time. I’ve had enough of almost dying. Enough of incomplete things. I want this. I want you.”
“Bossy.” But he’s grinning. That wild, reckless grin that makes my heart stutter. “I like it.”
“Then do something about it.”
He does.
RURIK
I’ve waited centuries for this.
Didn’t know I was waiting. Didn’t know what I was missing. Just filled the emptiness with noise and fire and reckless charges into battle, telling myself it was enough.
