“Marcus. If things go wrong,” she says finally, her voice steady even as her eyes flick away, “this may be the last time we see each other. And if things go right… if our families are restored… the council will undo the marriage. Maximillian was the root of the conflict. Once he’s gone, they’ll have no reason to keep us bound.”
The words hit like a fist to the chest. Losing her to death, or losing her to politics—it doesn’t matter which. Either way, I lose her.
I cross the room, slow, deliberate. “If tomorrow isn’t promised,” I rasp, “then we should make the most of what nights we have left.”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. The way she looks at me, the way her breath hitches when my fingers brush hers—that’s enough.
I kiss her like it might be the last time. Urgent, then softer, then reverent. I memorize her with every touch, every sigh, every inch of her body under my hands. The first couple of times, desperation ruled. Last time, it was gentler, and yet I still held back. Maybe she did too. Tonight, it’s different.
I strip, heat coiling as her eyes rove over my naked form, devouring me with their heat. I hold out a hand to her, and she clasps it. I lead her to what used to be my bed but became hers. Tonight, I want to make it mine.
Gently, I lay her down and crawl up her body. I kiss her and make sure to savor the feel of her lips, the taste of her tongue. I commit the way she moves beneath me into my memory. Agonizingly slowly, I bunch the silk around her hips and suck in a breath when I realize she isn’t wearing any panties.
I push into her. Inch by inch, she swallows me in her heat, and I pray to the gods this isn’t the last time I’ll get to love my wife. I try push the desperation from me. To focus on the sensations and not on the lasts. The last time I’ll watch the breath slip out of her parted lips. The last time I’ll watch her arch her back. The last time a tear will slip from her eye as she pulses around me, giving me her release.
Later, when the heat fades into exhaustion, we curl together in silence. I don’t let her go. I don’t even try. Sleep drags at me, but I fight it long enough to memorize the rhythm of her breath and the weight of her against me.
Because tomorrow, one way or another, I lose her.
And still, selfish bastard that I am, I want everything.
33
ESMERELDA
It’s suffocating, pretending the days are ordinary when they’re anything but. Every step feels like walking on a tightrope that might snap at any given moment, causing me to fall deeper and deeper into an abyss of uncertainty. I skirt the dining room like it’s cursed, but it’s not the room that’s cursed. It’s me.
Even the doorway strangles me, invisible hands wrapping tight around my throat. Behind it, the silhouettes wait, draped in sheets, caught mid-gesture, mid-meal, mid-life. Grotesque statues frozen in the moment the world betrayed them.
And then the thought circles back, again, like some sadistic broken record. What if they’re awake in there? Not dead. Not gone. Just… aware. Trapped in their own bodies, listening to the world move on, screaming for help in silence no one can hear.
It’s the nightmare that claws at me most—the idea of being locked inside myself, fully conscious but voiceless, watching life carry on without me. Gods, it terrifies me.
And yeah, I know. It’s projection. My brain doing what it does best lately—making horror movies out of things that are already horrific enough. But logic doesn’t stop the thought fromdigging in, doesn’t stop my chest from tightening until it feels like I’m the one suffocating.
Better dead than trapped like that. That’s what I tell myself. That’s what I’d want. Which probably makes me sound morbid, but hey, better honest than stuck giving stone-faced dinner parties for eternity. And knowing my luck, no one would bother with a sheet—I’d be left there in full display, mouth frozen open mid-scream. Charming.
Ugh. This is why I avoid the dining room like it’s ground zero for the plague. One glimpse and I’m undone. Those shrouded figures aren’t just furniture tucked under sheets, they’re people I love. People I never got the chance to love, even if once upon a time they’d been my sworn enemies. That’s the cruelest part: all the potential cut off mid-breath, every unfinished fight, every unspoken apology, every “maybe someday” locked away in stone.
Worst of all are the worried glances. Minerva keeps darting looks at me like she’s waiting for me to spontaneously combust. Marcus’s are no less pointed, and Leonard has doubled down on the dad jokes. He’s laying it on so thick you’d think bad humor was a weapon of war. Normally I’d laugh, maybe even toss one back just to shut him up, but right now? It all just sinks in my gut like I’ve swallowed lead.
Days grind by. Every second stretches long enough to feel like an hour, and every hour feels like a slow torture. By the third night, I’m wound so tight my skin buzzes. My hands can’t seem to stay still. I keep rubbing my palms together until they’re raw, pacing grooves into floorboards. My jaw aches from me clenching it so hard. The scrape of a chair, the groan of a floorboard, all makes me want to scream just to bleed off the pressure.
I head into the kitchen to get a snack I won’t eat. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with me. It’s like I’m trying to prove tomyself that the knot in my stomach isn’t so tight it feels like I went for surgery to tighten it further.
As I open the fridge, the sensors flare, red light slicing through the dark that has my stomach bottoming out. My pulse rockets, rattling in my throat. For a breath, I can’t tell if it’s dread or relief making me shake. Maybe both. Either way, it’s here. Finally. Showtime. I run out of the kitchen.
The alarm is still ringing in my ears when Marcus barrels into the hall. Truth is, we’ve been bracing for this since the night we got back, circling the same what-ifs, like dogs chasing their tails. I’m sure that’s offensive to my wolf but she’s too busy scenting the prospective deaths.
Marcus looks grim. He’s as still as our petrified family members, and yet he silently vibrates. Also, his eyes give him away. That same cold fury glints there, the same hunger for payback I feel breaking out under my skin. Misery loves company, I guess.
Minerva strides in next, whip coiled in her hand, lips pressed into razor-thin lines. She doesn’t ask if I’m ready, just scans me once, like she’s taking inventory, and nods. It’s comforting, knowing she is confident that we’re gonna make it out alive.
Then there’s Leonard, jogging in like he’s late for happy hour. He’s already grinning, already cracking a line about how we should’ve dressed for the occasion. The joke’s terrible. The grin’s faker than the knockoff Rolex Belvedere borrowed for Marcus when we met the coven. But hey, at least he’s consistent—bad humor in the face of impending doom is practically his brand.
Serafina glides in quietly, bow already strung, posture so precise it makes the rest of us look sloppy. She doesn’t speak when she’s in this mode. Honestly, it’s intimidating. Like watching a storm pretend to be human.
Our wolves shiver at the edges of their control, claws just beneath the skin. It’s like standing next to live wires. One wrong spark, and the whole lot of us are ash.
