“You...”
“I love you.” Saying it out loud is simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing I’ve ever done. “I love you, and I’m choosing you, and I don’t care if you’re a demon or a human or a dancing imp in a leather jacket. Stay with me.”
Stay with me.
The bracelet on his wrist explodes with light.
I gasp, throwing my arm up instinctively, but the glow isn’t painful—it’s warm, golden, like sunrise after a long night. Through the brilliance, I can see the seventh stone transforming, the dull black surface cracking and reforming into a deep, luminous ruby.
And then all seven stones begin to pulse.
In unison. Like a heartbeat. Like our heartbeat.
The light spreads outward, surrounding us both in a cocoon of radiance. I can feel it—the magic—not as an external force but as something rising from within. From the connection between us. From the truth we’ve finally stopped hiding from.
“Izzie.” Mal’s voice is awed, reverent, shaking with emotion. “Do you feel that?”
I do.
It’s like every moment we’ve shared is playing back at once. The first disastrous lesson. The dinner invitation. The charity gala. The plumbing crisis. Her mother’s party. The night I danced alone and let him see who I really am.
Seven invitations.
Seven moments of choosing each other.
Seven stones, now blazing with ruby fire.
The bracelet—that crude, incongruous thing that never fit with Mal’s elegant style—is transforming. The cracked leather smooths into something supple and beautiful. The silver setting reshapes itself into intricate patterns that catch the light. The seven rubies glow like captured stars.
It’s no longer a chain.
It’s a choice.
“It worked.” Mal is staring at his wrist like he’s never seen it before. “The contract... the invitations... it actually worked.”
“We still have to complete the dance.”
“We will.” He looks up at me, and his smile is incandescent. “We will, because you just did the impossible. You accepted me. Completely. Without reservation.”
“Was that all it took?”
“That’s everything.” He pulls me into his arms, holding me so tight I can barely breathe. “Three hundred years, Izzie. Three hundred years of failing, of watching the bracelet stay dark, of believing I would never be free. And you... you just...”
He can’t finish. His shoulders are shaking.
I hold him tighter.
“I meant it,” I whisper into his neck. “Every word. I choose you, Mal. Whatever comes tomorrow, whatever happens with Azrael, whatever the future holds... I choose you.”
“Even if I’m a disaster?”
I laugh despite the tears tracking down my cheeks. “Especially because you’re a disaster. We can be disasters together.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me. His eyes are still glowing red, but there’s something new in them. Something that wasn’t there before.
Hope.
Real, genuine, unguarded hope.
