Page 210 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 1-4

The feelings I have for her are so intense I wanted to protect myself in any way I could.

But I don’t want to be safe.

I want her.

To be the hero of the story, you have to risk.

I will risk it all for her.

To be her hero.

“I love you,” I say. “It isn’t like anyone else. This isn’t about guilt. You’re right. It’s about my fear. And I despise my own fear. Because when I was a boy and they were torturing me, I felt too much of it. I tasted too much of it. And now that I have the possibility of this happiness I find…” I stand up, and I kneel before her. “I fell in love with you the moment you walked into this throne room.”

And with those words, I’m free.

As if they’re a magical spell that lifted a curse from me. One I’ve been living under for far too long.

“What?”

“It’s true,” I say. “I loved you from the first moment that I saw you. You are everything I never allowed myself to want.”

“That’s what you are for me, Lucian. You are absolutely everything to me. I had the epiphany that I could want any number of other things for a career, for a focus of study, but I could never want another person the way that I want you.”

“I have never had the option of choosing what I want to do with my life. But when you walked in it became clear. I want to love you. You are the fulfillment of every dream that I’ve ever had, of every story that I’ve ever read. I always wanted to escape my life. I wanted to read about people who weren’t me. I wanted to connect, and sometimes fictional people were the only way to do that. Until you. You, and your resistance to reading good books. You, somehow, were instantly and immediately this missing piece to myself. Maybe because you are a scientist and I’m the furthest thing from it. Maybe because you’re the first person to look at me and not be afraid of me.”

“I’m more than not afraid of you,” she says. “I love you.”

I cannot remember the last time I heard the words, and she’s said them to me so many times. A gift beyond anything that I’ve ever known.

“I love you,” I say, holding her precious face. “I love you. I love you.”

I realize that I’ve looked at everything the wrong way. It’s been about what I allow. What I can bear. About what cage I put her in or release her from. All about changing her to suit me. When maybe we need to change together.

“The cage is open, sparrow,” I say. “Let’s fly together.”

Epilogue

I finish studyingin a hybrid manner. I can’t bear to be away from Lucian as often as school demands of me. But we work out ways for me to complete research in person, while I do the majority of my classes at the palace, which also allows me to sink into my duty as queen. After my graduation, we decide to have our first child.

A little boy. Beautiful, like his father. And I know that it will heal something in Lucian every day that he gets to be a father to him. Every day that he gets to keep him safe and unharmed. Every day that we get to build love as a family. He is a king, yes, but he pours lots of his time and energy into his family. As much as possible. He travels with me as I write papers, give speeches on my focus of research. Because I’m not doing it for him. I’m doing it for me. For the future that my children will be living in. I do it because I like it. And that’s one of the greatest things of all.

That Lucian and I are living a life that we like. That we would choose, time and time again.

I’m even thankful now that he dissolved our marriage. Because after that, I had to choose to marry him all over again. And it was a very different wedding. Attended by my sister and her husband, my mother, and her newest boyfriend, who she’s no longer with. With a dress that I chose for myself, with my best friends as bridesmaids and with only joy, and no fear at all.

For most of my life, I knew that I wanted to do one thing. With Lucian, I get to be a wife, a mother, a scientist, a queen.

But most of all, I’m his. And that is something I would choose every day, all over again, forever.

And every night, with our children, we read stories.

One in particular that might have been written by a certain king and released under a different name.

The Sparrow and the Dragon, about the impossible love between two creatures, from two different worlds.

It has a happy ending.