"Then we fight." He pulls back enough to look at me, hands sliding up to frame my face. "I've survived six centuries, Celeste. I've walked into more traps than I can count. I'm still here."
"You didn't have someone to worry about before."
"No." His thumb traces the line of my jaw. "I didn't. That's new. But it's also why I'm going to fight harder than I ever have. Because I have something worth fighting for now."
I turn my head, press a kiss to his palm. "I keep thinking aboutall the things I haven't told you yet. All the conversations we haven't had. What if…"
"Don't." His voice is firm but gentle. "Don't start cataloging regrets. We have time. We're going to have time."
"You can't promise that."
"No. But I can promise that I'll do everything in my power to make it true." He tilts my chin up, makes me meet his eyes. "I have centuries of experience in staying alive. Let me use it."
I want to argue. Want to point out that experience doesn't matter when you're walking into an ambush, that Konstantin has centuries of his own, that love is exactly the kind of weakness an ancient predator knows how to exploit.
But I don't. Because right now, in this moment, I need to believe him. Need to believe we're going to walk out of that warehouse together.
"Tell me something," I say. "Something about you I don't know. Something that has nothing to do with war or vampires or Konstantin."
He blinks, caught off guard by the request. Then something shifts in his expression, a softening, a remembering.
"I used to paint," he says. "In my human life. I wasn't good; the masters of the time would have laughed at my work. But I loved it. The way colors could capture light. The way a few strokes could make something feel alive."
"I didn't know that."
"I haven't painted since Luciano." He stops, shakes his head. "I stopped making beautiful things. It felt like a weakness. A vulnerability he could exploit."
"And now?"
His eyes meet mine, soft and fierce all at once. "Now I'm thinking I'd like to start again. When this is over. Maybe try to capture the way you look in firelight."
My heart clenches. "That's unfairly romantic."
"I have hundreds of years of unexpressed sentiment saved up. Consider yourself warned."
I laugh despite everything, despite the fear, the danger, the knowledge that we might be dead before sunrise. He smiles at the sound, and for a moment, we're just two people who found each other against impossible odds.
Then the smile fades, and reality reasserts itself.
"Come back to me," I say. "Whatever happens in there, come back to me."
"I will." He cups my face, holding my gaze. "And you come back to me. No heroics. No sacrificing yourself for some greater good. You stay alive, because I refuse to spend eternity without you."
"Even if it means other people die?"
The question hangs between us. It's the question we've both been avoiding.
"I would burn the world for you," he says quietly. "I'm not proud of that. It goes against everything I've tried to build, every principle I've held for centuries. But it's true. And I need you to know it's true, so you understand exactly how serious I am when I tell you to stay alive."
"Maximus."
"I know it's selfish. I know a good leader would say the mission matters more than any individual life, including yours. Including mine." His grip on my face tightens. "But I'm not a good leader right now. I'm a man who's finally found something he can't lose. So please. Please, Celeste. Stay alive."
I should argue. Should tell him that I'd make the same sacrifice he would, that I can't promise to put my life above others, that love doesn't trump duty.
Instead, I say, "I promise."
Because I want to believe it too. Want to believe we get to havethe future he's painting in his words, a future with terrible paintings and firelight and centuries stretching out before us.
