She nods at me, her tears running as her fingertips trail my jawline, and her grieving gaze buries me under a cruel desperation to change our circumstance.
“You have to keep going. You have to change Goreon, just like we’ve always dreamed. You’ve got all the time in the world now to do it.”
Her breath shudders; we only have a few more moments, and I force myself to find my voice again. “I want you to be happy. And you better fucking do it, Gracie.”
Her face crumples. “I don’t want a future without you.”
“Promise me you will finish this.Promise me.”
She nods at me through her tears.
ThehavocGrace could wreak on this world unleashed as a vampire, to skillfully infiltrate them, to take them down from within—
Yes. This is better than her death. My magic simmers like a burning sun in agreement and I blanch, the path so clear before me and I never knew to listen to it.
A river of power pushes me toward this decision like a road laid in gold.
Grace Hull is the Hunter who will bring peace to Goreon. We were her way in, her destined protectors until fate threw us into a perfect storm that culminates with her rise.
“What will you call yourself?” I ask, desperate to know the vampire name that will live in our histories.
She buries her head in my neck, nuzzling into me while she considers. “The name we would’ve given our daughter,” she whispers into my skin.
“Veya,” I whisper back, tilting my head to hers, humming in approval as my eyes blur with tears. “Change the world, Veya. Make it right, rule the evil, become a queen.TakeGoreon.”
Grace lifts her head from my neck and looks at me, her gaze flashing red and expression stern. A decision written in hereyes. “Iwillfinish what we started, Kade. No matter how long it takes, Goreon will see peace. I swear it to you,” she snarls, and her promise wraps around my dying soul.
And then Gracie kisses me. Her tongue finds mine, and I savor every second before she pulls away.
“I’ll rule them kindly and give life to the people, Kade. I will find a way.With all that I am.”
I smile at her through my pain.
My love.
My darling.
My Gracie.
MyVeya.
“I love you, myqueen,” I whisper, lucky to be the first to utter the word she will hear someday from someone else.
I’m glad to know her name, the woman who will define the future and shape the world around her into our vision, flitting from threat to threat, slaughtering through eternity in her own brutal dance.
Her body steams under the rising sun.
“Go! Youmustgo,” I urge as she clings to me, her fingers digging into my biceps with a dangerous bite.
Her fangs pop from between her lips, and her green eyes dart to mine, full of alarm and unimaginable sadness.
I yank the chain from my neck, pressing the Hunter crest in Gracie’s palm. “You are the bridge between worlds, you are the way this ends, my love. Bebold. Bebrave.”
She pockets my necklace, nodding at me through her tears.
“I will always be with you, Grace,” I promise her. “Forever may you reign.”
“I love you, Kade. In this life and the one after that,” she cries.
