She gasps, her eyes widening as she takes it from me, her fingers tracing the delicate lines with a reverent awe. “Eoin… it is beautiful. But… what is it for?”
I do not answer with words. I answer with action.
I take a deep breath, and I kneel.
I, a Vrakken Enforcer who has not bent his knee to anyone but the Matriarch in ten thousand years, kneel in the soft dirt before a mortal woman who was once a slave. The act is a surrender. An offering. An admission that she is my queen, my leader, my everything.
Her eyes are wide, her lips parted in stunned silence. I can feel the shock and confusion and a dawning, wonderful hope radiating from her through our psychic link.
“Elza of Haven,” I begin, my voice a low, rough thing, stripped of all its old, cold formality. “I come before you not as a conqueror, but as a supplicant. My life, which was an empty, frozen void, you have filled with a fire I never thought to feel.”
I reach out, taking her free hand in mine. Her skin is warm, her calloused fingers a testament to the life of struggle she has endured. “My purpose, which was once the cold logic of duty, has been given the warmth of devotion. To you. And to our son.”
I raise her hand to my lips and press a kiss to her knuckles, my gaze never leaving hers.
“My strength is yours to command. My wings are your shield. My heart, a thing I thought long dead, is yours to keep.” I takea shaky breath, the vulnerability of this moment a terrifying, exhilarating thing. “I am a traitor to my people, a monster to my enemies, a ghost to my past. Let me be your mate. Let me be your husband.”
I squeeze her hand, my soul laid bare in my eyes. “Let me be yours, Elza. In this life, and in every life that may come after. Will you have me?”
She stares at me, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. The silence stretches, a fragile, perfect moment where the entire universe seems to be holding its breath. I can feel her overwhelming, joyous love for me through the link, a pure, white-hot sun that banishes the last of my own internal shadows.
And then, a slow, beautiful smile, brighter than any dawn I have ever witnessed, spreads across her face.
“Yes,” she whispers, the single word a promise, a vow, and my salvation.
35
ELZA
The ceremony is held in the valley, in a small, sun-dappled clearing surrounded by ancient, silent trees. Our only witnesses are the sky above, the earth below, and the few souls who have become our truest family: Tarek, his wife Elara, and Lyren, who stands beside Eoin, clutching the carved stone his father gave him.
There is no priest, no altar. There is only a simple, granite basin filled with clear, cool water from the stream, resting on a moss-covered boulder.
Eoin stands before me, and in the soft afternoon light, he is a thing of breathtaking, impossible beauty. He is not the cold Enforcer or the brutal warrior. He is simply… mine. The awe I feel for him is a living, breathing thing, a fire in my chest. He has taught me the words of the rite, the simple, ancient Vrakken tradition that is more binding than any law.
He takes a small, ornate dagger from his belt—the one he took from Cailan, its purpose now transformed from death to life. “I come to this union of my own will,” he says, his voice a low, reverent vow that vibrates through the very ground. “My past is ash. My future is you.”
He slices a clean, shallow line across his palm. His blood, dark and shimmering with a faint silver light, wells up. He holds his hand over the basin, and a single, perfect drop falls into the water. It does not dissipate. It does not mix. It hangs suspended in the clear water, a swirling, silver star.
He turns the dagger and offers it to me, hilt-first. My hand is steady as I take it. I look at my own palm, a roadmap of scars from a life of hardship. I add one more, a thin, red line that speaks not of pain, but of promise.
“I come to this union of my own will,” I echo, my voice thick with an emotion so powerful it threatens to overwhelm me. “My past is a memory. My future is you.”
I let my blood fall. It is bright crimson, shot through with the golden light of my Purna magic. It drops into the water and hangs there, a fiery, golden sun beside his silver star.
Together, we watch as the two drops of blood begin to move. They do not merge or blend. They begin to spiral around each other, a slow, hypnotic dance in the heart of the still water. Silver and gold, darkness and light, Vrakken and human. Two separate, whole beings, forever bound in a shared orbit. The magic in the clearing is a palpable thing, a soft, humming pressure that settles over us like a blessing. A ward of devotion. A promise.
Later, in the quiet solitude of our chamber, the sacredness of the ceremony follows us. The raw, desperate need of our last encounter is gone, replaced by a deep, reverent tenderness that makes my heart ache.
He closes the door, and for a long moment, he just looks at me, his starless eyes filled with a raw, vulnerable love that mirrors my own. “Elza,” he breathes, the name a prayer.
He comes to me slowly, his hands rising to cup my face as if I am the most fragile, precious thing in the universe. “You are my queen,” he murmurs, his forehead pressing against mine. “Mymate. My heart. You have saved me in more ways than you will ever know.”
“And you, mine,” I whisper, my hands coming up to rest on his chest, over the steady, powerful beat of his heart. “I am yours, Eoin. I think I have been since the moment I first saw you, a broken god in a lightless cell.”
The kiss is soft, a stark contrast to every other kiss we have shared. It is a kiss of exploration, of awe, of promises kept. It is a healing. He undresses me with a slow, worshipful reverence, his fingers tracing every old scar, every new one, his lips following the path of his hands. He is not just touching my body; he is memorizing my history, honoring the survivor I am.
When I am bare before him, he lifts me into his arms and carries me to our bed of furs. He lays me down and simply looks at me, his gaze a tangible thing that warms my skin more than any fire.
