I had chosen her.
And gods help me; she had chosen me back.
The storm outside settled into a low, steady murmur, the softest I’d heard it in years. As if even it understood what had just shifted, what had just begun.
I held her a little tighter, shadows wrapping around her like a promise neither of us had spoken aloud yet. And in the quiet that followed, one truth settled through me like the spark before lightning strikes:
I thought I understood devotion.
Oaths.
Duty.
Power.
But none of that compared to the way she said my name, like I was something worth choosing.
It broke something in me, something I didn’t realize was still capable of breaking. And I knew in that breath, that I’d become every nightmare whispered about the Storm Court before I ever let anyone take her from me.
Chapter 26
Dawn and Disaster
ATLAS
Dawn slid into the room like a quiet inhale, soft, airy, almost impossibly gentle for the night we’d torn apart.
Light brushed over her first. Across her shoulder, the curve of her back, the softness of her hair against my chest. She shifted closer in her sleep, a small sound in her throat, fingers curling lightly against my skin as if even unconscious she refused to let me go.
The room felt different, lighter, warmer. Not heavy with magic anymore but eased by it. Her mark glowed faint silver where it rested against my hip, mine responded without permission.
I didn’t dare move.
The world outside could keep its dawn. I wanted this moment, this breath-stealing quiet with her against me to last forever.
But the storm in me wasn’t quiet, it watched her, it reached for her. It wrapped around her like it already remembered the shape of her body, the sound of her breath, the way she’d said mine against my mouth last night.
I dragged my knuckles along her spine once, lightly, unable to stop myself. Her breath lightly hitched, and her body meltedeven further into me. A soft hum slipped from her throat, the kind that made heat flicker low in my chest.
If she woke like this, gods help me…
I swallowed hard.
I should’ve pulled away. Should’ve tried to climb out of the bed before she opened her eyes and set me on fire all over again.
Instead, I lay there, memorizing every inch of her, the warmth of her skin, the rising and falling of her breath, the faint scent of rain-and-night still clinging to her hair.
Outside, a breeze stirred against the balcony doors. Normally, the Court would echo my moods, my storms. But this dawn, the air held its breath with me.
Her legs tangled with mine, her thigh brushing my hip, and I nearly cursed out loud.
It wasn’t lust, or at least, not only lust.
It was the realization that for one impossible night, someone had chosen me, not my crown, not my storms, not the weight of what I was supposed to be. Just me. And now she slept in my arms like I wasn’t something dangerous at all.
She exhaled slowly, eyelashes fluttering.
Waking.
