Build a life worth living.
Axel reads it. His arms tighten around me.
I fold the paper one last time, slowly, deliberately, and tuck it into the pocket.
I'm not going to need it anymore because my life is completely fulfilled.
Axel
Four weeks Later.
I have faced bullets without feeling a single fear.
Men have bled at my feet. Empires have shifted because I said so. I have walked into rooms full of enemies and left with their surrender in my hands.
None of it means a damn thing tonight.
Tonight, I stand at Aurora’s bedside while she labors to bring our child into the world, and for the first time in years, I know what it is to be helpless.
Her fingers crush mine with every contraction. Sweat glistens along her temples. Her hair clings to her face. She is pale, furious, beautiful, and I swear to God, if pain were a living thing, I would gut it with my bare hands for touching her.
“Axel,” she gasps, her nails biting deeper into my skin.
“I’m here, tesoro.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes find mine, blazing even through exhaustion. “You better not.”
A weak threat. A beautiful one.
I bend and press my mouth to her damp forehead. My hand slides over the swell of her stomach between contractions, reverent now, because in a matter of moments, the life we made in sin and fire will be laid in my arms.
I thought I understood obsession before Aurora. I thought I understood possession, hunger, need.
I knew nothing.
Because this is not hunger. This is not lust. This is not even love in the ordinary, harmless sense of the word.
This is terror.
This is standing beside the woman who remade me and realizing I would burn every kingdom I own, every dollar, every man, every ghost, if it meant keeping her safe.
The doctor says something low and calm. Nurses move around us with practiced hands. The room smells sterile, but Aurora fills it anyway, her pain, her strength, the force of her. She cries out again, and something savage rises in me.
“Easy,” the doctor says.
I cut him a look sharp enough to skin flesh. “Do not tell her easy unless you’re taking her pain.”
Aurora lets out a breathless laugh that turns into another groan. “Still terrifying people in the delivery room?”
“I can do worse.”
“I know,” she whispers.
That is the thing. She always knows.
Another contraction tears through her. She arches, trembling, and I gather her hand to my mouth, pressing a kiss to herknuckles. For once, I don’t care who sees. Let them all see. Let them witness what she is to me.
Mine. My heart. My ruin. My salvation.
