It isn’t. The marks the coven carved into me have faded to silver scars, but they still ache when the air turns cold. I pull the cloak tighter around my shoulders. He steps closer and fastensit himself, his fingers brushing the faint lines that curl above my collarbone that never healed.
“You never told me they branded you,” he murmurs.
“I didn’t want you to see what it cost.”
“I see it now.” His voice roughens. “Every cut, every line—they did this because you loved me.”
I shake my head, tears threatening. “They did it because I was foolish enough to believe love could bargain with monsters.”
He lifts my chin. “And yet here we stand. Fucking triumphant.”
Rain drips from the eaves; the scent of lilies rises from the garden. I reach up, trace the small scar on his lower lip, the one I gave him centuries ago in a kiss that drew blood. “You never healed this,” I whisper.
“Some wounds, especially those made in love, shouldn’t heal.”
The words unmake me and the distance between us collapses.
He pulls me into his arms, and for a long, still moment, I hear nothing but the rhythm of his breath against my ear, the steady, impossible beat that mirrors mine.
“I thought I hated you,” he says finally, voice low and breaking. “For centuries, I let jealousy eat everything that was left of me. But it was never hate. It was love twisted wrong.”
“Lucien…”
He presses his forehead to mine. “You suffered for me, my Elara. And I repaid you with rage and carnage. I can’t undo it, but if you stay…if you let me try, I’ll spend ten eternities making it right.”
I close my eyes, swallow the ache that’s been building since the nunnery walls fell. “You still don’t understand.”
“Then teach me.”
“I’d do it again,” I whisper. “Every pain, every century of silence. I’d do it again if it meant you lived.”
He goes utterly still, then kisses me, soft, unguarded, a vow rather than desire. When he pulls back, his beautiful eyes are burning more gold than crimson. “Then let’s make it mean something.”
He reaches into his coat, draws a silver blade. The same one we used the night of our oath. He turns it in his palm until the edge catches the torchlight. “One last vow,” he says. “Not to bind but to promise.”
He cuts first, the scent of his blood filling the air, rich, dark and familiar. Then he offers the knife to me.
When our blood meets, the world narrows to heat and heartbeat. The bond flares between us, ancient magic answering its own name. He cups the back of my neck and brings my mouth to his wrist; the taste of him floods through me—wine and storm and centuries of longing.
Then I offer him mine. He drinks slowly, reverently, as though it’s another vow. When his lips leave my skin, the cut is already closing, sealing the promise inside us both.
The rain stops. The torches flicker out one by one until only the glow of our joined blood lights the courtyard.
Lucien’s voice is barely a whisper. “By blood, by breath, by fire, by night. Until the end of ends.”
I echo it, the words a shiver against his throat. “Until the end of ends.”
He draws me close. “No coven. No curse. No gods between us again.”
The air stills, and somewhere beyond the walls, the bells of Florence begin to ring the hour. The sound rolls over us like a benediction.
He kisses me once more, slow and certain and eternal.
And when he lifts his head, his eyes glint. “Now, come, my love. Let me introduce you to pure horsepower and the phenomenon of being fucked on top of a Lambo.”
My laughter tinkles out of me, made of pure joy.
My world ended when I lost him, but eternity begins again in his arms.
