"You got me. I amnothim. I'm not going to wake up tomorrow as a man who writes poetry on a card. I'm not going to learn soft. There is a way that fairy tale alphas are gentle that I will never be."
"I never asked you to be—"
"I know. I'm telling you anyway. So you hear what comes." Her hand has gone very still in mine. "I'm imperfect. We are imperfect. And we still fit."
She doesn't move. "That's the part I finally figured out. Princes are a story, Star.Fitis a fact. The bond, my hand on your hip, the way your scent goes when I walk into a room—that is not a story. That is the only fact my life has ever produced."
"Liam."
"I had something made."
She blinks. "What?"
"Before I flew home. I called a jeweler and had this made because I could not get back to you fast enough and needed to bring you something. I needed it to exist before I touched American ground."
I get up. Her eyes follow my naked body across the cabin. My pants are on the floor where I dropped them. The velvet box is in the inside pocket. Heavier than it looks for what it is. I come back. Kneel in the nest.
Not on one knee. Both.
"This isn't a ring." Her eyes go wide. "A ring comes later. When the omega in you is ready. Whenyoutell me. I'm not asking you for a yes tonight. This is something else." I open the box.
Star doesn't reach. She just looks. The slipper is no bigger than the tip of my thumb. Glass. The chain is platinum because she's worth more than platinum.
"Liam—"
"I searched the world." Her mouth opens. "I didn't know I was searching. That's the part that took me years to learn. I was running mergers and signing contracts. Telling myself I was building an empire when I waslooking for you.I just didn't know it yet."
I lift the pendant out of the box. "I walked into a flower shop to file a complaint—”
“—to be an asshole.”
I shrug, “Maybe. It was a lifetime ago, and I was a different alpha. I walked in and found the only omega in any country, in any city, in any back room of any shop who was ever going to fit me." She is crying again. Different tears.
"Perfectly."
She lifts her hand. She doesn't take the box. She touches the slipper with one fingertip. Like she's making sure the glass is real. Like it might be a trick of the light.
It isn't. "You had this made," she whispers. "While you were leaving me."
"While I was coming back to you."
"Liam."
"Every mile away was a mile back."
A breath shakes her whole body. "Put it on me."
My hands are not steady. I cannot remember the last time my hands were not steady. She turns. Lifts the heavy weight of her hair. The bond mark sits livid at the side of her neck where my teeth went in the first time. I fasten the clasp under it.
The slipper settles in the hollow of her throat. The glass catches light. She turns back. She is wearing nothing else. "Say it again," she whispers.
"Which part?"
"The last part."
"I found the only omega who was ever going to fit me." I press my forehead to hers. "Perfectly."
The bond doesn't sing.
