Hair wild, face smudged with dust, eyes blazing with a mix of adrenaline, fear, and something that makes my chest hurt.
“You routed my power,” I say hoarsely. “Through your body. Through your will. No one has ever steadied me like that.”
She gives a shaky laugh.
“Yeah, well. I’ve always been good with foundations.”
Something inside me shifts.
Like a plate locking into place in the mantle.
“Aurel used to say love is the only thing that keeps us from drowning in our own power,” I murmur before I can stop myself. “I never believed him.”
“What changed?” she asks softly.
I cup her face in my hands, thumbs brushing the dust from her cheekbones.
“You,” I admit. “You changed me.”
Her breath hitches.
“I told myself I chose you because the bond would be useful,” I go on. Each word feels like breaking stone, like exposing old faults. “Because Nightfall needed one more viyella to stand with us. Because duty demanded I look.”
“And now?” she whispers.
“Now I know I am lying to myself if I pretend this is only about duty.” My voice roughens. “I am Dagan, Lord of Earth. Warden of the Rooted Marches. I have stood alone by choice and by stubbornness. But today, when the ground tried to tear this village apart, the only thing I cared about more than holding the land together was not losing you.”
Her eyes shine.
I swallow hard.
“I do not know how to say this the way you deserve,” I confess. “But I will not insult you by pretending I don’t any longer. I love you, Alina Fawcett. My Oona. I think I did from the moment your boot hit my fault line, and it told me I would never know peace again.”
Silence.
The village noise fades into a distant buzz.
For a heartbeat, all I hear is the rush of my own blood.
Then she exhales, a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, and throws her arms around my neck.
“You big, stubborn, rock-headed idiot,” she whispers against my mouth. “Do you know something? I’ve been waiting for you to admit that this was something more than duty.”
I blink. “You were?”
“Sure I have. What Jersey girl hasn’t imagined being loved obsessively by a dark shadow daddy?” She leans back just enough to meet my gaze, eyes wet and blazing.
“A what?”
“Seriously,” she continues, ignoring my confusion. “Every time the ground shakes, I reach for you. Every time you scowl at me for risking myself, it feels like home. I’ve felt rootless my whole life. Like I was always one shift away from collapse. Then you crashed into my job site and yelled at the earth for misbehaving, and I thought, well, there he is. Finally. Mine.”
My throat closes.
I don’t have words for this.
So I do the one thing I know.
I hold on.
