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I stared at her, my dead heart stuttering. “You want to...”

“I want to free you.” Her voice cracked, vulnerability breaking through her fierce determination. “I want to stop her. I want to be with you, truly with you, in every way. I want...” She paused, her cheeks flushing. “I want you, Logan. Even like this. Even broken. Even if we only have tonight before she destroys us both. I want to be yours. Completely.”

I should have said no. Should have protected her from the consequences, from her mother’s wrath, from the uncertain future that waited beyond this room. I should have been noble, selfless, sacrificial.

But I was tired of being noble. Tired of being cursed. Tired of being alone.

“Yes,” I breathed.

She helped me to the bed, lifted me, actually. Her witch’s strength surprised me as she maneuvered my dead weight with gentle efficiency. I lay back against the pillows, feeling exposed and vulnerable and utterly dependent, but she was already moving, transforming the space around us.

She lit candles I’d never owned, pulled from her bag with small, precise movements. Drew symbols on the floor with chalk: circles and spirals and ancient runes that glowed faintly in the darkness. The air began to hum with building magic, warm and electric and alive.

“This isn’t just sex,” she said, her voice steady now that the decision was made. “It’s a ritual. A claiming. The bond will seal, permanently, and neither of us can break it after tonight.”

“I don’t want to break it.”

“Good.” She climbed onto the bed beside me, her movements careful and deliberate. “Because once we do this, we’re bound. For life. However long or short that life is.”

She knelt beside me, her hand hovering over my chest. “Your heart,” she whispered. “It’s beating.”

“It does that. When you’re near.”

She smiled, small and real and full of wonder. “Then let me make it beat harder.”

She kissed me first, soft and slow, and I felt the bond hum between us. It was warm and electric and impossibly alive. Her hands moved to my shirt, unbuttoning it with practiced efficiency, her fingers trailing fire across my cold skin.

“I’ve never done this before,” she whispered against my throat. “Not with someone I loved. Not with someone I chose.”

“Neither have I.” I reached up, my own fingers finding the zipper at the back of her dress. “Not like this. Not with everything.”

She kissed me again, deeper this time, and I forgot about the curse, forgot about her mother, forgot about the paralysis and the humiliation and the future. I forgot everything except the warmth of her mouth and the softness of her skin and the way she was looking at me like I was everything.

Her dress came off, pooling on the floor in a whisper of fabric. Then my pants. It pissed me off to no end that she had to help with those, my legs uncooperative and embarrassing, but she didn’t flinch. Didn’t laugh. Just worked with patient determination until I was bare beneath her, vulnerable and exposed and trusting.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, tracing the lines of my chest, my stomach, the scars from my human life that would never heal. “Even broken. Even cursed. You’re beautiful to me.”

“You’re the one who’s beautiful.” I reached up, my hand trembling, and cupped her face. “You’re the one with power. The one with grace. The one who could have anyone.”

“I’m the one who wants you,” she corrected, and there was steel in her voice now. “And I’m going to use everything I have to free you.”

She moved over me, positioning herself with careful deliberation. I felt the moment of hesitation between us. The last chance to stop, to be safe, to preserve what little we had left.

“Carolina,” I breathed, my voice rough with emotion. “Are you sure? Are we sure?”

She looked down at me, her blue eyes dark in the candlelight, full of love and fear and absolute, unshakable certainty.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

She lowered herself toward me, and the chalk circle screamed.

There was no other word for it. The runes shrieked like metal dragged across glass. White fire ripped through the symbols, raced up the bedframe, and snapped across my skin. Carolina jerked back with a curse that would’ve made Dean proud.

“That is not supposed to happen,” she said.

“Fantastic. I always wanted to be medically, and now, magically interesting.”

The curse seized my body. Every muscle locked at once. My spine arched off the mattress, my teeth clamped together, and pain tore through me so violently I couldn’t even scream. For one blinding second, the bond flared hot enough to burn. Beneath the pain, I felt it: balance. Strength. Grace. The vampire I should have been surged to the surface and reached for Carolina.