I am going to kneel on that cracked linoleum floor.
I am going to tell her that I was wrong.
That my paranoia is not strength—it is cowardice.
That I would rather risk everything than spend another moment without her.
And if she tells me to leave—if she looks at me with those sharp, defiant eyes and says she is done—then I will accept it.
I will calcify.
I will become the monument I was always meant to be.
But I will not let fear make that choice for me.
I move toward the door, my footsteps heavy on the polished floor.
The rain hammers against the windows.
The city lights blur below.
And for the first time in eight hundred years, I am choosing to be brave.
Not by isolating myself.
Not by building walls.
But by tearing them down.
By going to her.
By asking for forgiveness.
By choosing love despite the terror.
I open the door.
And I go to claim my mate.
Chapter 17: Tamsin
The orange juice tastes like ash.
And I mean that literally.
Not in some poetic, heartbroken way.
It literally tastes like nothing.
I'm sitting at my kitchen table—the same cheap, wobbly table where I used to count past-due bills—drinking premium organic orange juice straight from the bottle. The kind with the fancy label and the pulp that costs twelve dollars. The kind I used to stare at in the grocery store and think,Maybe someday.
Well.
Someday is here.
And it tastes like absolutely nothing.
I set the bottle down and stare at my phone.
