“I might even wear a dress,” Jos says, eyes bright.
Happiness engulfs me. “You’re supposed to ask.”
He looks at me. “I don’t think so. You’d try to weasel out of it.”
“I would not.” I grin.
“We’re getting married. Say the words, Ella.” His voice lowers and takes on that same command tone he used the other night. It slides across my skin and awakens something.
“Fine. We’re getting married, but we’re throwing a bash. I want a wedding fit for a princess.” I even have a tiara to wear.
“You’ve got it,” he says.
“I’m sure Alana will figure out a way to show the world,” Mags says.
Justice blinks. “Oh wait. I guess you’ll figure out a way to make TimeGem the key? I think it’s yours now. This is going to get complicated.”
“You like complicated,” I murmur. He must, right? Or he wouldn’t have just proposed.
“No, I don’t.” One of his dark eyebrows lifts. “That’s why I live in a house by myself in the middle of the woods.”
“Now with me and a dog,” I add. Well, until I run again. I’m sure he’ll catch me. It’ll be fun, though. I rub my palm along his whiskered jaw. “When we healed Alexei earlier? I figured out how to heal you. We just need to combine the right stones and energy.”
“Yours and mine,” he says softly.
Yeah. Exactly. “We can try later today.”
Aura clears her throat. “You know, we were talking to Ella about how Alexei’s built a guest house for Rosalie’s boarders. It was blown up.”
Justice’s voice goes short. “Yes.”
“You would never let anything like that happen, would you?” Mags asks softly.
“Of course not,” Justice says, and the answer is so automatic it makes the rest of us smile. “You’re saying you want a building on my property for you three to live in?”
Mags grins like she’s won something.
Aura folds her hands and speaks like it’s common sense. “Just think how much safer you’ll feel close to us instead of working from afar.”
Justice’s bronze skin pales a fraction—if that’s possible.I wrap a hand around his chin and kiss him once. He doesn’t soften, exactly, but I feel it in the way his jaw eases. “I’ll think about it,” he grumbles.
I take that as a yes. If a year ago someone had told me that Alana, Rosalie, and I would be engaged or married to some of the most dangerous men alive, I’d have laughed. I never thought I’d find love like this. I never thought therewaslove like this.
“Just for the record,” I murmur, because some of my family is here and the moment feels big enough to spill, “I do love you.”
Tears flash in Aura’s eyes.
Justice presses a kiss to my nose and smiles, a little resigned but real. “I love you, too.”
I grin. “This is going to be fun.” I’m teasing him, but he’s everything. Oh, he’s a little rough, and plenty dangerous, but he came for me. Through bullets, through fire, through pain.
Might as well give him forever.
EPILOGUE
Ella
I’m about as happy as I can be as I post once again on TimeGem Moments and ask all of my millions of new friends to capture the moment with me.
