The door cracks open, revealing Emmett’s devastated face, his eyes rimmed with red.
I push past him and dump the letters on his desk. “I wrote you too. All those months you were gone, I was writing you letters.”
He looks to the mess of papers and then back to me. “I want to fight for you. Will you let me fight for you?” he asks.
“Yes.” My skin buzzes; my heartbeat thunders in my ears.
“I am, and have only ever been, yours. I would have done anything to protect you.”
I tip my forehead against his and we breathe raggedly, but in unison.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly.
Emmett lowers himself to the floor until he’s kneeling in front of me. “I have loved you and I have grieved you and now I am on my knees for you,” he says. “Ivy Benton, if you believe only one thing let it be this: I am yours, down to my bones.”
I brush my fingers under his chin and he rises. “Then can we both agree that we’re stronger together than we are apart?” I ask.
He nods like he might start to cry again, his hazel eyes all glossy.
“I love you, Emmett De Vere.”
He rises from the floor and leans in. “I lost you once. I’m not going to be stupid enough to lose you again.”
It’s like this that Emmett and I have always made the most sense: alone, in a dark room.
He wraps his arms around the small of my waist and tugs my body flush against his, then crushes his lips to mine, and I’m lost.
His mouth moves down my neck, to the sensitive hollow of my throat, and then back up. We both stand and he tips me against the back wall until I can feel every aching plane of his body.
“Wait—” I gasp against his mouth.
He lets out a sharp breath I’m not sure is a laugh or half a sob.
“What comes next? Your wife—”
Emmett groans. “Don’t say that word. I’ll get it annulled, I’ll get a divorce— I’m not sure how the faeries handle it, but I’ll do anything.”
I sigh against his mouth. “And then you’ll join me in my exile?”
He smiles back. “If you’ll have me.”
“All right, then. One more trial to lose. Two faerie divorces, and then forever?”
“Forever,” he agrees, and kisses me hard. “I’ll never deserve you,” he mutters, his mouth moving against mine.
I pull back and shake my head. “If we play this wholewho is deserving of whogame, we’ll forever be unhappy.”
“Because I’ll never deserve you?”
“Because love doesn’t care if you’re deserving or not. It justis.”
He turns to face me and captures my face in his hands. They’re large enough that they reach from my jaw to nearly the crown of my head.
“Let me love you, just as you are,” I breathe. “You told me your love isn’t fickle. Well, neither is mine.”
Emmett lowers his mouth to mine, and there are no flames or sparks or comets shooting across a distant sky. His lips yield against mine, and the kiss is soft and slow.
It feels like coming home.
