“You would not want to bond with me, Sage.”
Sage.
She says my name like it’s the last thing she’ll ever say.
Like there’s no more sacred word in the fucking dictionary.
And it hits me, all at once—if I lose her, if I let her go, there’ll never be another.No one else who obsesses, who breaks, who fights and loves the way she does.There are no replacementsfor a girl like this. She’s a once-in-a-lifetime. A bomb with bubblegum hair and a death-wish, stitched together with hope and trauma.
I want to hold her until she stops shaking.
Forever, if that’s what it takes.
She glances sideways, eyes wild, pupils blown huge, unstable and beautiful.
“You like a challenge?” I ask, voice rough.
She nods, a savage little smile. “Why else would I still be here?” Her voice drops, deadly serious. “If I didn’t, I’d have quit. Left. Ended it all. But I didn’t.”
The words are a punch to the heart.
I see the truth in her eyes—the threat that’s always hovered, the line between survival and surrender.
I cup her cheeks, thumb brushing the bruise at the edge of her jaw.
I look at her—into those mismatched depths—and I know I can’t let her go.
“Well, thank whatever fucking being in the sky that you didn’t do any such thing,” I say, and my voice breaks on the last word.
Then I pull her in and kiss her.
Hard.
Devouring.
Everything in me pours into the seal of our lips—the hunger, the terror, the gratitude, the need.
She melts against me, still trembling, still tapping her fingers against my neck and gasping these little sounds that make me want to shield her from the world and set it on fire at the same time.
Her mouth is sugar, blood, ozone, and everything unholy.
I drag her closer, arms wrapping around her, knot throbbing between us, her thighs squeezing my hips tight.
Our bodies fit—perfect, inevitable, like someone planned this centuries ago and left us here to find each other at the end of the world.
She bites my lip, and I growl—a sound from somewhere primal, the animal in me answering the animal in her.
When she finally breaks the kiss, she’s panting, eyes shining, cheeks flushed to match the pink in her hair.
“You’re mine, Sage,” she says, and it’s not a question.
I nod, dizzy.
“Yeah. Yours.”
I kiss her again, like it’s the only thing that matters.
Might as well be signing on the dotted line of needing this Omega in my life forever…
