“Honestly, I had no idea if I could even resurrect a vampire who wasn’t a gray. Especially without an amulet.”
“Jace—”
“I just knew I had about three seconds before you turned into ash and I couldn’t bear it and I—”
“Jacinda.”
She closed her mouth and lowered her eyes, shame coloring her cheeks.
And Gabriel knew, all at once, where this was coming from.
Inthiscity, witch, death is a kindness. That you’d seek to defy it is nothing less than madness…
His old words echoed, and Gabriel tucked a finger under her chin, tipping her face up to look at him once more.
“Loveis the kindness, Jace,” he said softly. “And I have never been so bloody ecstatic to have been so bloody wrong in all my life.”
She finally smiled, her eyes filling with relief. “So you’re not mad I brought you back?”
Gabriel shook his head. The fact that she could eventhinkthat… That she’d honestly believe he wasn’t ready to drop to the ground and kiss her feet in thanks for saving his life…
“Come with me,” he said suddenly.
Without waiting for a reply, he swept her into his arms and blurred her up to the rooftop above his penthouse.
“What… what is this?” she whispered, her mouth wide with surprise as she got her bearings and took in the sight.
Beneath a new, climate-controlled glass encasement, the entire rooftop had been exquisitely landscaped. A patch of wild mint here, a tangle of moonflowers there, rows upon rows of herbs and plants—everything he’d seen her use in her spells and concoctions, everything he’d ever heard her mention with so much as a passing word.
“This is your home now, Jacinda,” he said, hands on her shoulders. “Ourhome. You deserve all the things that make you happy. I want to give them to you—tonight and always.”
Jacinda stared out across the expanse, not speaking. Barely even breathing.
“If you don’t love it,” Gabriel went on, “we can leave the city, of course. Find something upstate near your father, or… I don’t know. Another state altogether, if that’s what you want. Anything, love. Just say the word, and it’s yours. Ours. Home, I mean. Wherever you want it to be.”
She finally turned to face him again, her eyes glittering with tears.
“Home,” she said softly. “For so long, I thought I would only ever belong in hell.”
“And now?”
“If home is a place, Gabriel, then it’s this one right here.” She pressed her hand to his heart, her bright-red smile lighting him up all over again. “And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Well, except for maybe…”
He leaned in close. Brushed his mouth along the shell of her ear. “Maybewhat?”
“Are those rose bushes?” she asked, gesturing to the back corner of the encasement.
“They are indeed.”
With another wicked grin that made him instantly hard, she took his hand and led him into the thicket.
Together they knelt in the dirt, and tonight—a night for new beginnings—Gabriel allowed his woman to take charge.
She pushed him onto his back and climbed on top, straddling him.
He realized, in that most blissful fucking moment, the witch wasn’t wearing panties.
A soft moan escaped his lips, and he pushed her dress up to her waist, relishing in the feel of her bare heat against his cock.
