Page 143 of His Eternal Claim

“Look at me.” His hands come up to frame my face, his rough thumbs desperately wiping the torrent of tears from my cheeks. His grey eyes are bloodshot. “Look at my face, baby. You survived. You came back to me through a fog that would have killed anyone else. Do you hear me? You came back.”

“But the baby,” I choke out. My hands fly down to my stomach, clutching the fabric of my dress over my womb, my fingers digging in until it hurts. “Our baby, Zagreus… I killed our child!”

He cups my face and pulls me to his chest.

Leaning down, he kisses my stomach through the cloth. “I’m sorry,” he gasps against my skin. “I should have known earlier. I let our child die in the dark, Selene. That is my sin. Not yours. Never yours.”

“No,” I sob, pulling his face up so I can look at him. “No, Zagreus, listen to me. I thought… when the memories came back, I thought you only wanted me because of the vengeance. I thought I was just a prize you needed to take back from my family. I was so scared that you loved the memory of the girl I used to be, not the broken, ruined thing standing in front of you now.”

Zagreus lunges upward, his mouth crashing against mine, obliterating the space between us. It tastes like salt, tears, and a terrifying, eternal hunger. He kisses me until my lungs burn, until the static in my head turns into a beautiful silence I want to drown in.

When he pulls back just an inch, his forehead stays welded to mine, his hot breath fanning across my lips.

“A prize?” he whispers, his voice shaking with a lethal intensity. “I would live in the dirt, I would bleed out in that alley every single day for the rest of my life, if it meant I got to hold this broken version of you.”

He slides his hand to the back of my neck, his thumb tracing my jawline. “There is no ‘old version’ of you, Dolcezza. There is only you. You are my favorite weakness. My sweetest punishment. You are my entire fucking world, and if you are broken, then we will be broken together.”

I let my head fall onto his chest, listening to the heavy, frantic slam of his heart beneath my ear. One heartbeat. Mine. His. Ours.

Epilogue

THE MAESTRO | Sixteen Months Later

Ihave never cared about immortality. I only care about the woman sitting on the edge of our outdoor stone hot tub, her bare feet dipping into the steaming water while the Mediterranean wind catches the hem of her silk robe.

I track the curve of her throat, moving down to the slight, beautiful swell of her stomach beneath the dark green fabric. Four months pregnant. Our second chance. A heartbeat I guard with every violent instinct hard-wired into my DNA.

“You’re staring, pervert,” Selene murmurs without looking back.

“I’m just thinking,” I say, stepping out of the shadows of the terrace. I’m dressed in a loose black shirt, the top three buttons undone, the scars on my shoulder and ribs a faint white reminder of a past life. I walk up behind her, my hands sliding onto her shoulders, my thumbs tracing her collarbone. “How many minutes I have left before our guests arrive, and whether it’s enough time to tear that robe off your shoulders.”

She laughs. She leans her head back against my thigh, looking up at me with those massive dark eyes. They are clear today. Not every day is clear. The nightmares still wake her at three in the morning, screaming, her skin drenched in sweat as she claws at her throat.

There are medicines. She hates taking them. I make her. I watch her swallow the pills every day, my hand resting on the back of her neck, holding her to the present. I don’t care about a perfect recovery. She fights the ghosts, but she doesn’t fight them alone anymore. Every time she wakes up suffocating, I am there to shove the darkness back down its hole.

She paints sometimes when she gets overwhelmed. I do not stop her. I try to be gentle and patient, which I was not years ago. I give her time, even if it takes forever. I will be there for her, beside her, ahead and behind her, inside and within her.

She belongs to me as much as I belong to her. Our breath starts with the same air, and it’ll end with the same.

“You have exactly ten minutes,” she whispers, her fingers reaching up to grip my wrist, her thumb tracing my pulse.

“Judas is always early. It’s an incredibly irritating trait.” I sink to my knees on the ledge behind her, my hands sliding down her ribs to cup her belly. My chest tightens with a fierce, possessive heat that borders on sickness. I press my face into the crook of her neck, inhaling her baseline—jasmine, expensive lotion, and the clean scent of the sea. “Let him wait. All I want to do is fuck you until you forget what day of the week it is.”

“Zagreus,” she groans, a flush creeping up her neck as my hands slide beneath the silk of her robe, my rough palms brushing the smooth skin of her inner thighs. “The children are with them. Behave.”

“I am a multi-millionaire with a clean record and a pregnant wife, Dolcezza. I can behave exactly how I want.” I slide my hand higher, my fingers finding the damp, aching heat between her thighs. She gasps, her back arching against my chest as my thumb locks over her clit. “Tell me you want me. Say it.”

“I want you,” she wheezes, her fingers tangling frantically in my hair, pulling my mouth down to hers. “Always. Damn you, always.”

The kiss is madness that sixteen months of domestic peace hasn’t diluted. I taste the salt on her skin, my fingers moving inside her, until she sobs against my lips. I want her consumed by me. I want my brand so deep inside her head that the nightmares don’t stand a fucking chance.

Before I can slide her panties down, a child’s screeching laughter echoes up from the lower terrace steps, followed by a damned sigh.

“For God’s sake, Vitale, put the woman down. There are impressionable youth present.”

I close my eyes as a low growl rattles in my chest. I slowly pull my hand out, tracing the dampness along her thigh before pulling her robe closed and tying the belt.

I stand up, turning my cold eyes toward the archway.