"You saved yourself." His voice is drowsy now, too. "You killedValentina. You survived the silver. All I did was give you an anchor."
"Still. Thank you."
He presses a kiss to the top of my head. "You're welcome. Now sleep. You've earned it."
"So have you."
"I'll sleep when you sleep."
"I'm sleeping now."
"Then so am I."
I smile against his chest. I feel him drifting off, his thoughts growing fuzzy, his emotions softening into the peace of approaching sleep. I let myself follow, let the exhaustion finally claim me.
The last thing I see before sleep takes me is the faint glow of our bond marks in the darkness. Two crimson crescents pulsing in perfect unison. His on his chest. Mine on mine. Two halves of one moon, waiting to be whole. Proof that whatever we are, whatever we're becoming, we belong to each other now.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
Three days.
Three days of peace. Three days of waking up with Celeste in my arms, our heartbeat pulsing between us like a promise. Three days of learning the bond, the way her emotions bleed into mine.
Three days of pretending the war is over.
It's not, of course. Konstantin is still out there, regrouping, planning. The contamination crisis continues. The trigger buried in Celeste's blood remains a threat we haven't solved. A kill switch that could turn her against me at any moment.
But for three days, I let myself have this. Let myself be selfish. Let myself pretend that love is enough to keep the darkness at bay.
Tonight, reality intrudes.
"You're brooding."
Celeste's voice pulls me from my thoughts. She's standing in the doorway of the bathroom, toweling her hair dry, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else. Through the bond, I feel her amusement at catching me lost in thought.
"I don't brood."
"You absolutely brood. You have a whole brooding corner." She gestures toward the chair by the window where I've been sitting, staring at nothing. "You sit there and stare out at the grounds with your jaw clenched and your brow furrowed. It's very dramatic."
"I was thinking."
"Dramatically." She crosses the room and settles onto my lap, her legs draped over the arm of the chair. The scent of her, clean skin, my soap. "What were you thinking about?"
"The meeting tonight."
Her amusement fades, replaced by something more serious. I feel it, the flicker of anxiety she's trying to hide. "The inner circle."
"They need to know what happened. All of it."
"Including the part where I'm a weapon he can activate whenever he wants?"
"Including that." I tuck a strand of damp hair behind her ear. "They're my advisors. My allies. They can't protect the network if they don't understand the threat."
"And if they decide I am the threat?"
The question hangs between us. It's something we haven't discussed directly, the political implications of what she is. What Konstantin made her to be.
