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At the sound of Quill’s command, they both fall to their knees, chins to chests, as their weapons retract, allowing us entrance into the estate. Picking my jaw up off the ground, I bask in the knowledge that we are alone, truly alone, for the first time since that night in Carver’s brownstone.

There are no listening ears, no risks of anyone intruding. It’s just Quill and me, the two of us standing in front of a stunning estate surrounded by lush, rolling fields that couldn’t possibly be in Norica.

“Where are we?” I ask, taking in the view of dawn over the horizon—all mellow purples and pale pinks.

“We’re still in the Wyldelands.” His hand encompasses mine as he leads me inside, voice echoing in the corridor. “Godrick gifted me Garden’s Gate after my first century as a vampire.”

“He gifted you an entire estate.” I blink slowly. “Well, that’s a gift I could certainly never top.”

“You are the best gift I could ask for,” Quill says, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.

The echo of my once beating heart rattles through me at the gentleness of his touch, the gentleness of his words. I can’t help myself, can’t stop myself from kissing him. His arms loop around my waist, pulling me flush against him, our mouths opening at once to let the other in. His tongue moves against mine as if he has all the time in the world to explore, to search. We kiss for a beat longer before I break away and we continue wandering the nearly empty halls.

It truly is beautiful.

We enter a well-lit room with high-vaulted ceilings and open windows, accented by delicate curtains spun from silk. The natural light from the rising sun casts a hazy glow over the space. I drift toward the gilded frames, running my fingers over the pressed flowers hanging sporadically along the walls.

That night at Carver’s house, I told Quill about my love for pressing flowers, and he seemed so taken aback that I babbled on like an idiot to fill the silence. Why did he react that way? And who…

“Who pressed these, Quill?” I ask quietly.

“I did.” He pauses as if he has something else to add, and when I spin toward him, he says, “For you.”

“You couldn’t have possibly had the time to press so many flowers since the night we first met,” I counter. “So when did you do all this?”

His indigo eyes flick to the marble floor, suddenly seeming all too preoccupied with his feet. “The morning after I’d been sired, Ioana Valcov, a powerful fortuneteller, came to the Shore of the Damned with a prophecy. There was a female in her mind’s eye that she couldn’t quite make out. A curl here. A shock of honey there.” He slowly lifts his gaze to mine. “She sat me down and said, ‘The female who sits alone in a field of flowers weeping about time and fate is never truly alone because she’s Quill Godrickson’s one true mate.’

“I didn’t believe her. But then she told me of the female’s love of flowers and how our lifethreads had been knotted together like long-buried roots. She said she watched as the female plucked one of the flowers, took it home, and pressed it between the pages of her diary, writing seven simple words⁠—”

“In another life, I’ll collect them all,” I whisper.

I remember that day so vividly. It was my eighteenth birthday, when the ever-ticking clock began to suffocate me. It was the day I doodled a silly list of things-to-do-before-I-die, and it was the day I decided to let myself live in whatever ways I could before Vivvy took everything from me.

“When she left, I told Godrick and Nerissa of her prophecy.” His laugh is breathy, eyes shining with the memory. “They said the Fates would bring us together when I was ready, but I was impatient. For centuries, I searched for you to no avail. So I found a better use of my time.” He lifts a shoulder and gestures at the preserved flowers all around us. “I would’ve hated myself if I found you and didn’t give you a head start at collecting.”

I don’t know what to say to such a grand gesture.

So I say nothing at all.

I throw myself into his arms and kiss him. I kiss him for the years he waited, for the agonizing days he spent searching for a female who may or may not have existed. I kiss him for every perfectly preserved petal and carefully plucked stem. I kiss him in gratitude for all that he’s done for me since finding me and all that he’s promised to come.

We gently lower to the floor in a heap, limbs tangling, until I climb on top of him, legs on either side of his hips. I like the feeling of him beneath me and how intimately aware I am of how large he is, how toned and powerful.

“Thank you,” I say, kissing the line of his jaw and the tip of his nose. “For waiting for me.”

Brushing my hair from my face, he says, “The wait was worth it, tiny monster.”

He kisses the smile from my lips with fervor.

We’re unable to fight this predestined attraction, this tether that binds us together.

My hips grind into his. Desperate. Needy. A combination of the two. One of his hands finds the bow tightening my dress and pulls it loose. Silk puddles around my waist. Cupping my breasts, he guides his mouth to my skin, clamping over my nipples one at a time as he slowly works them into two rosy peaks. That mouth of his is divine. Sinful. Perfect. His cock hardens, the length of him hidden beneath his pants when he should be inside me. I move against it, aching for any kind of friction, and he groans. I was a fool to believe the night I spent pleasuring myself to the thought of him would ever satisfy me. My fingers have nothing on the feel of his thickness between my legs.

“I waited so long for you,” Quill growls, tearing his mouth from me as he rolls me over and onto my back. His hand skirts along my bare ribs, over the unblemished skin of my stomach. Lower still. He toys with the lacy edge of my underthings. “For centuries, I stroked my cock while imagining your face, that fucking flower field, and how if I had it my way, I’d fuck you there until the sun rose and sank and rose again.”

“Take me there, Quill,” I murmur. His hand dips lower, lithe fingers caressing the damp fabric between my thighs. “When all is said and done, and you are vampire supreme, take me there and fuck me.”

His hand is between us as he palms himself through his pants. “When I am vampire supreme, we will fuck wherever you wish. Flower fields, on my throne, in that ridiculously small bed in Wynterhaven. It doesn’t matter. Name the place, and I will have you any way you’ll take me.” He pushes my undergarments aside and slips his fingers between my heat, dipping two into my entrance with his thumb on my clit. His mouth meets mine before I can beg him to keep touching me just like that.