CADE
For a second, I think I’ve finally snapped. That I’ve hallucinated her inside this cave. Or I’ve died, and I’m grasping at dreams I’ve willed out of thin air because my mind’s been breaking little by little, every day I’ve been out here.
But then she moves.
She’s running toward me, and it’s enough to collapse my entire world inward.
Rowan.
She slams into me with a force that stops my heart just before forcing it to beat again. Her arms lock around my neck, fingers curling into my coat like she’s terrified I’ll slip through her hands. My knees want to drop from the sheer relief of holding her, but I stay standing. I have to. For her. For us.
She’s here, and she’s alive. She’s in my arms, clinging to me like maybe she’s ached for me just as much as I’ve done for her.
Her face presses into my throat, and the sound shemakes—broken and strangled, half-sob, half-prayer—puts a knife straight through me. I bury one hand in her hair, the other wrapping around her waist, pulling her tighter until she trembles with the intensity of it all.
“I thought—” her voice cracks, muffled against my skin, “Cade, what I did?—”
“Shh.” My voice is rough gravel. “Don’t worry about what happened. Don’t even think about it. I’ve got you now, and I’m not letting go anytime soon.”
Her fingers tighten in my coat, and she shudders. “But I’m so sorry. He used magic, and I didn’t know…”
The words hit me like a punch, and I lean back just enough to see her face. Her eyes are more heavily blue and golden at the moment, but it’s the regret in them that guts me. I have no clue what she’s been through, but I can’t imagine it’s been any easier on her than it has been for me these last two weeks.
“Thank you for coming for me,” she whispers, voice barely there.
“I never left.” The truth grinds out of me, low and fierce. “My body moved, Rowan. That’s all. Every part of me, the pieces that matter, stayed with you.”
Her breath stutters, soft and uneven. She lifts a shaking hand and cups my cheek. Her thumb traces the thick stubble there, slowly, almost reverent, like she’s memorizing the shape of me.
My chest caves inward. I didn’t know I could feel this kind of relief. I didn’t know it would hurt to care like this, but it’s a pain I wouldn’t trade for anything.
“I dreamed of you, of this moment, so many times,” she murmurs.
I swallow hard, my vision blurring at the edges. “I know. I felt it. Every night. Every damn minute.”
Her breath brushes my lips. She’s close—so close I can feel her heartbeat stutter against mine.
I remind myself to be gentle—we’re both too fragile for anything else—but that doesn’t stop me from needing this contact.
I lower my forehead to hers, closing my eyes. “You’re safe,” I breathe. “I have you now.”
She exhales like the words shattered something inside her. When her lips brush mine—barely a ghost of contact—it steals every coherent thought from my skull.
My breathing stops, and when she does it again, I know she needs this just as much as I do.
I kiss her.
Slowly. Carefully. Devastatingly.
Her fingers slide into my hair, her body melting into mine, and the kiss deepens just a breath—slow, aching, and starved—but still tender and controlled, because if I let myself go, neither of us will make it through the night.
A stray tear slips down her cheek and hits my lips. My entire being quakes.
I pull back only enough to graze the corner of her mouth, then her temple, then rest my forehead against hers again, breathing her in like oxygen.
“He won’t get you again,” I whisper. “I’ll make damn sure of that.”
She nods, but the look in her eyes doesn’t seem so sure. Though it’s not fear there, it’s resolve, like she’s learned a lot more than I have since the night she left. Like she came back forged from something that should have broken her.
