His smile is soft and wicked and unbearably tender. “Your magic is fully returned. You’re finally out of limbo. Fully alive.”
I rest my head against his shoulder, feeling the impossible—his heartbeat echoing through mine. ““Is this real? After everything?” I breathe, the confession trembling out of me. “I don’t know how to hold this, how full it feels.”
Lucien’s fingers slide into my hair, drawing me closer until our foreheads touch, until the air between us is only breath and the lingering sweetness of blood.
“Then let me hold it with you,” he murmurs, voice low and reverent. “Let me holdyou. For life. For always.”
A sound escapes me, too soft to be a sob, too full to be a laugh, and I curl into him, into the impossible warmth of his body and the ancient steadiness of his presence.
His arms wrap around me, sure and unhurried, as if he has finally allowed himself to believe the one thing neither of us ever dared to imagine.
We made it back to each other.
The candlelight gutters, leaving us wrapped in the scent of rain and iron and something that feels almost holy.
For the first time in two and a half centuries, there is no space between our breaths.
Only the quiet promise of forever.
A few nights later,Florence
The hoursbefore sunlight are spent feasting on wine and grapes and a heavenly dish he callsburrata with roasted figs and honey.
And then there’s the chocolate—rich, velvety, sinful in a way the dark, bitter cakes of my century could never achieve.
I tasted it and nearly wept.
We’re fully immersed in Lucien’s giant cast iron tub when our joined blood begins to glow, faint gold seeping through our skin, binding.
More of my magic returning.
The ancient vow unfurls in the air between us, a language older than time, older than either of us. I feel it sink into me, into the bones that have carried centuries of longing.
Lucien leans close, his breath at my throat. “Say it.” It’s a command he’s demanded of me many times in the last several hours.
“I am yours,” I repeat gladly, “and you are mine.”
The power slides through us like heat, tightening every nerve. The bond ignites, deep, pleasurable and unending. His hands move gently at first, tracing the curve of my neck, the line of my spine.
My pulse stumbles when every place he touches sparks memory: a moonlit field, a church in ruins, his mouth whispering my name against my skin three centuries ago.
We sleep through the day, then after nightfall, we dress and we walk through old haunts while the city slumbers. Florence has always been most beautiful after a storm, the streets washed clean, air sharp with wet stone and iron.
We move through its silence like ghosts. And when we return Jean has packed our bags.
We are leaving.
Lucien stands beside the sleek machine he calls a Lamborghini in the courtyard, long coat unbuttoned, hair damp from the drizzle. The electric torches throw pale fire over him, catching on the faint burn marks that still ring his wrists where the coven’s circle held him.
I trace those scars with my eyes and ache.
“You’re sure?” he asks quietly. “We can stay here longer if you wish.”
“There’s nothing left here but ashes,” I answer.
He nods, but doesn’t open the door. Instead, his gaze travels over me. “You’re trembling.”
“It’s only the wind.”
