I reach up and cup his face—his real face, beneath the beard and the disguise—and I feel him shudder under my touch. Feel the barely contained restraint that's cost him everything.
"You came for me," I whisper.
His forehead drops to mine. His breath shakes.
"I came for you both."
Both.
He knows about Hale. Of course he knows.
"You know that he's?—"
"Mine? Yeah…I know." Tristan stops, swallowing hard. "He's so fucking perfect, Keira."
Tears slip down my cheeks, and I don't bother wiping them.
"You named him after me." His breath catches.
"I promised I would when we were in hiding, in that cabin. I told you I was stealing your name. That it was mine."
He brushes my tears away. "I thought you were joking."
"I never joke about theft."
He laughs, but the sound breaks near the end.
His hands come up to cradle my face. "You gave him my name." He says it again, like he needs to hear it twice to believe it. "You were trapped here, and you still gave him a piece of me."
"I wanted him to have something real. Something that was ours. Even if you never knew. Even if I never saw you again. I wanted him to carry a part of you with him. Always."
His chin trembles. "Keira…"
"I didn't know if you'd ever find us." I'm crying freely now, all my flimsy walls crumbling to dust. "But I wanted him to have your name. So that somewhere, somehow, you'd still exist in his story. Even if you were never in mine again."
"I'm in your story." He presses his lips to my forehead, letting them linger. "I've always been in your story. I never fucking left it."
I break quietly into a thousand pieces that he catches in his hands like he's been waiting his whole life to hold them.
"I've got you," he murmurs against my hair. "I've got both of you. And I'm never letting go again."
For the first time in years, I let myself believe.
Holding onto him and trying not to think about what the hell comes next.
THIRTY-NINE
TRISTAN
She's still trembling in my arms when I feel the shift.
One second she's clinging to me like I'm the only solid thing. The next, her body goes rigid. Her fingers, still fisted in my shirt, tighten into claws.
"Are you okay?"
She shoves back from me and scrambles to her feet so fast I barely register it before she's standing over me, looking genuinely furious.
"You've been here this whole time?" she whisper-yells. "Why?"
