Her eyes shine. And because she is cruel in exactly the right ways, she whispers, “Bossy.”
A real laugh escapes me. Small, wrecked, helplessly relieved.
Then she says it again. “I love you.”
I kiss her before she can say anything else.
Not hard. Not hungry. Just slow and deliberate and full of everything I was about to walk out of the room rather than risk hearing wrong.
When I pull back, I rest my forehead against hers for one unguarded second. “You nearly waited too long to tell me,” I murmur.
She breathes out a faint laugh. “You literally turned to leave.”
“I was having a moment.”
“You’re very dramatic.”
“Yes.”
Her fingers curl weakly around mine again. Then, quieter, “You still said it first.”
That is true. And I don’t regret it.
Not even now, with poison in her blood and our son in an incubator and a war still waiting outside the room.
Maybe especially now.
I press a kiss to her forehead. “Get stronger.”
She blinks. “That sounded like an order.”
“It was.”
Her mouth curves slightly. Good. There. That. I need her with enough life in her to look annoyed with me. I settle back into the chair and don’t let go of her hand.
Outside this room, I will find whoever did this.
Inside it, for the first time since the doctors used the word poison, I let myself hold onto something else too.
She loves me.
And this time, she said it when she intends to live.
38
ZATANNA
After he says it back,after the room settles and I stop feeling like my chest might split open from the strain of keeping too much in for too long, the practical part of him comes back.
He sits beside the bed with my hand still in his and asks, “Tell me exactly what you ate.”
I blink. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“You really know how to ruin a moment.”
His mouth twitches. “Answer.”
