Focusing on her and only her, I forced a grin. “You want me to marry you? What here? With no ceremony or witnesses? Wouldn’t you like Frank to see you get hitched? I’m sure Dillon would kill me if I didn’t let him walk you down the aisle.”
“I don’t care.” She sighed wistfully. “All I care about is you.”
Her words ought to make me selfishly happy, yet...they were wrong.
Shedidcare.
She cared a great deal...
“What about Whisper?” I choked, begging her to give me the answer I needed. “He’d be super sad if he didn’t stand with us at the altar.”
“Whisper? Who’s Whisp—Oh, that’s right. The cat.” She frowned. “Where is that pesky thing anyway?”
My heart wrenched painfully in my chest.
Everything I’d been ignoring—all the cracks in this perfect paradise—swallowed me whole.
I was home.
Wewere home.
Yet thick, dark tendrils slithered across the ceiling like hungry fingers. They dripped down the walls, coming closer, closer.
My heart thundered as the air grew heavier, pressing down on my chest with grief. Sweat broke out across my skin as my entire body tightened with the suffocating sense of loss.
“Rook...” I tightened my grip on her hips, anchoring myself to her as the shadows pulsed, licking at the edges of the blankets. “Can you see that?”
She blinked in confusion, her eyes glowing with silver-ringed affection. “See what, my Furnace Heart?”
I swallowed hard as shadows wriggled along the contours of the coverlets, reaching out to stroke my foot.
Ripping my leg away, I trembled so hard I threatened to dislodge Rook above me.
“Lucien?” Anchoring her hands on my chest, she frowned. “Are you okay? Why do you look so terrified?”
“The shadows,” I grunted. “They’re everywhere.”
She frowned again. “There’s nothing there, Lucien. It’s just us. Like it will always be.” Combing her fingers through my hair, her energy soaked into mine. Usually it would calm me, but this time...it only made sorrow break my heart. “We’re safe, Luxin. We’re happy. Together.”
She used the three renditions of my name almost as if trying to prove thiswasreal. That it wasn’t a delusion created entirely by my heartbreak.
My gaze locked on hers, drowning in her, memorising every freckle and smile. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the last time I would ever see her. That she was slipping through my fingers even as I held on so fucking tight.
The cracking grew louder as if the walls started breaking apart.
“This is real.” I squeezed my eyes closed. “You’re real. I’m real.”
She snickered. “Of course we’re real, silly. What else would we be?”
The bed quaked as the floor shuddered. My eyes ripped open—
And I tripped into an utter nightmare.
Silk tapestries unravelled thread by thread, artworks unpainted themselves, furniture broke apart into shards.
Rook dug her nails into my chest as the ceiling crumbled,revealing snippets of the sunset above. “You’re scaring me, Lucien. What’s wrong? Why are you trembling?”
I sat up, dragging her with me as Ashfall Cliffunmadeitself.
