My heart just about stopped as Silas shared this news. “Workingfor him?”
“This is why I don’t like talking about these years,” Silas said dryly. “Because I get reactions like this. From people I love.”
We paused then, the word “love” levitating there between us. I wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to address the slip, so I let himtake the lead. It had been a charged moment, and I understood that maybe he’d meant it hypothetically, even if he hadn’t literally meant to say he loved me.
“I do mean it,” Silas said finally, very softly. “I do love you, Alessia.”
“I love you too,” I whispered. “I know it’s crazy, but I feel like I’ve known it since the moment we met. Even if I didn’t love you then, there was something about the falling-for-you process that felt inevitable.”
“I told you before that I’ve been searching for you for lifetimes. It wasn’t just to break the curse, Alessia. It wasn’t just to find the Fae Queen who could save us. It was because it was you. And because it was me.”
We kissed then, and he pulled me close. We moved together under the sheets as the moonlight trickled through the window, going from two separate entities into one. We spent another night wrapped in one another’s embrace, tangled together, unable to tell where one of us stopped and the other began.
Just before we finally drifted off to sleep, I opened my eyes and glanced out the window to see the entire garden alight with magic. It glowed with warmth and vitality and rightness. My magic was seeping out of me. I couldn’t control it one bit, and I didn’t mind at all.
