Tears flood down my face before I even register I'm crying. Not grief anymore. Relief. So violent and overwhelming I can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything exceptfeel.
He's covered in blood.
Dried blood clumps a gash at his temple, matting his dark hair. More blood crusts his split lip. His expensive suit—always so perfect, always so pristine—is torn across the shoulder, stained dark across the chest.
He moves carefully. Stiffly. Like every breath cracks something inside his ribs.
But he'sstanding.
He'salive.
He's real, and here, and not dead.
I try to run.
Lorcan's hand shoots out, iron around my bicep, yanking me back so hard I stumble.
"Wait," he commands.
But I don't want to wait. I need totouchhim. Need physical confirmation that he's real, that this isn't some nightmare hallucination my grief-soaked brain conjured.
Lorcan holds me in place while Giovanni closes the Aventador's door. He puts his hands up. "I'm alone." Then he's walking towards us.
I strain against Lorcan's grip, thrashing like a hooked fish. "Let me go!"
Giovanni's green eyes find mine across the courtyard.
Everything else disappears.
Lorcan releases my arm.
Irun.
I crash into Giovanni's chest hard enough that he grunts—actual pain, the sound punched out of him—but his arms come around me anyway, holding me tight despite the obvious agony it causes.
I don't waste a single moment.
"My King," I gasp against his bloody shirt, my hands fisting in the torn fabric. "My King, my King?—"
His hand tangles in my hair, gripping, pulling my head back so he can see my face.
"I am yours," I whisper, the words spilling out raw and desperate. "I choose you. Ichooseyou. I don't want any of this without you. None of it makes sense without you, Giovanni. I don't want it."
He lets out a breath and just stands there, looking at me with those devastating green eyes like he's memorizing every freckle, every angle, every impossible thing about this moment.
Then, slowly—so slowly I feel every fraction of the distance between us being erased—he leans down and kisses me.
It's not like any other kiss I've ever had. From anyone. Ever.
I can count the number of times Giovanni has kissed me on one hand with fingers left over, and every single one of those kisses was a weapon used to get something from me.
Never, not once, has it ever beentender.
But it's tender now.
His mouth moves against mine with a gentleness that makes my chest ache. Like I'm something precious instead of something owned. His fingers cradle my jaw with such careful reverence that tears burn behind my closed eyelids.
It's everything I ever wanted in a kiss and never thought I'd get from him.
