I catch her before she falls, vampire speed overriding the pain of my wounds, and pull her against my chest. Her heartpounds too fast, too hard, her body shaking with aftershocks of channeling power that should have killed her three times over.
“You did it,” I murmur against her hair, feeling her blood, warm, precious, andalive, seeping into my shirt where she’s pressed against me. “You held the line. You saved us all. You proved them wrong about everything.”
“We,” she whispers, her voice barely audible. “Wedid it. Together.”
She sags into me as she finally succumbs to the fight. Her weight is unsteady, trembling, every muscle pulled tight with damage that hasn’t finished tallying itself. Heat bleeds off her in uneven waves, pain echoing through her frame in sharp aftershocks that make her breath hitch. For a heartbeat, fear coils there, too, the residue of witnessing something no one should ever see.
Then it eases.
Just a little.
The tension loosens, relief slipping in a quiet exhale she’s been holding for far too long.
It’s done. The worst of it, at least.
The world hasn’t ended.
We’re still standing.
Her hand finds my chest.
Not searching.
Not desperate.
Certain.
The contact lands deeper than any wound I’ve taken today. There’s no hesitation in it, no doubt. Just a fierce, devastating certainty that cuts through everything else she’s endured.
Love.
Unconditional. Unyielding.
Given freely to something that never deserved it, and somehow believes it anyway.
I close my arms around her, holding her there as the truth settles with quiet finality.
I may be a monster.
But I’ll spend whatever eternity I have left becoming worthy of the woman who chose me anyway.
My brothers approach from the perimeter. Rogue and Scorch in the lead, Dread close behind, all of them battered and bloodied butalive. Oracle’s phoenix flames still burn. Hades’ white eyes still glow with necromantic power.
The club survived.
My family survived.
Because of Sloane.
“Get Oracle and Hades,” I tell Rogue, my voice rough with emotion I can’t quite contain. “She needs healing.Now.”
“On it.” Rogue doesn’t question, doesn’t hesitate, just turns and sprints toward the clubhouse where the healers are already gathering supplies.
I look down at Sloane, at this impossible woman who walked into my bar at what feels like a lifetime ago and turned my entire existence upside down. Who chose to drink my blood, chose to become something new, chosemeover safety, over normalcy, over a thousand easier paths.
“What happens now?” Sloane asks, echoing the question she posed before this battle began, before Viktor, before the Coven’s judgment, before everything changed.
I think about Thanatos cast out and broken at the bottom of a chasm. Of Viktor reduced to ash that scattered in the wind. About Nyx’s final words, granting us freedom we never thought we’d receive. And the future stretching ahead, uncertain and dangerous, is ours to claim.
