Page 145 of His Eternal Claim

Her smile widens. The sight still stops my heart. After everything, she still smiles. And somehow she still smiles at me.

“What if he was nothing like us?” she asks quietly.

I tighten my arms around her. “Then he would’ve been lucky.” Her eyes shimmer.

I see the old grief there.

The ghost that still visits us sometimes. The child we lost.

The life stolen before it ever began.

My hand covers hers. “We’ll tell them about their sibling one day.”

Selene’s breath catches as I kiss her temple.

“He’ll know he was loved.” A tear slips down her cheek.

“He would’ve had your eyes,” she whispers.

I rest my forehead against hers. “Maybe.”

“And your obstinacy,” she adds. “Definitely.”

She laughs through the tears. I would burn a thousand empires to hear it.

The wind shifts around us, and behind us, Judas and Seraphina are arguing about something ridiculous.

Ahead of us, the sea glows beneath the dying sun. And right here, in my arms, is everything that matters.

Not the throne. Not the money. Not the power. Her.

Only her.

“I love you,” Selene whispers.

Three simple words. Yet they hit harder than bullets ever could. I brush my thumb across her cheek.

“I know.”

She narrows her eyes immediately. “That’s your response?”

“It worked for Han Solo.”

“You’re impossible.”

“But you love me anyway.”

A reluctant smile appears. “Yes,” she says, leaning into me. “I do.”

I hold her a little tighter as the sun disappears beyond the horizon. Let the world remember me as a monster. Let history curse my name. None of it matters. Because when the dust settled, when the blood dried, when the throne finally turned to ash… she stayed.

And that will always be enough.

Epilogue 2

THE REQUIEM

“I am going.”