Our eyes locked—dark to bright, mirror to mirror—and in that endless moment, I saw all the questions he didn’t ask reflectedback at me. The point of no return. We were here, on the precipice we had hurtled toward for a hundred years.
"The point of no return, my Star,"Grim spoke into my mind, his voice deep and resonant."Could you spend an eternity in darkness?"
The curse, the warnings—they were like moth-eaten banners, shredded and irrelevant. Nothing mattered compared to the weight of his touch. I felt as if I had been set on fire from the inside, my veins lit with a new and dazzling joy. I had never known love like this. Never knownneedlike this.
"Your darkness has always felt like my light," I confessed, my voice breaking apart between us.
With that, Grim’s restraint crumbled. His body clashed against mine, covering me, enveloping me.
I had once thought we were oil and water—two forces forever opposed. Now I knew we were something else entirely. We were fire and tide. Destruction and renewal. Under the right conditions, we could either extinguish or exalt each other.
Grim pressed deeper, his weight a solid, anchoring comfort, as if trying to mold our very souls together. He kissed the hollow of my throat, my collarbone—worship in every trembling brush of his lips. My legs wrapped around his waist, anchoring him to me as he moved with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Unhurried but sure, as if memorizing every part of me with each stroke.
It was a dance we'd spent a century learning without ever truly touching. And now, at last, we moved together without grief or hesitation. Each breath, each caress peeled away the old hurts. Melted the fear from my bones. Sluiced the weight of my endless years from my spirit.
Every pain.
Every loss.
Every broken promise made in the name of love and light, washed away in the tide ofthis.
Here, in this bed, in his arms. My own shadows rose to meet his, twining together until we were indistinguishable.
One darkness. One light. One heart.
Grim's gravelly voice was barely more than a sigh against my ear. His soft lips trailed along my heated skin, his breath a wave of tenderness. "Forever is a long time," he breathed, voice cracking on the edges of the words. "Yet it would never be enough. Happy one hundred and forty-seventh birthday, my love.”
thirty-one
Waking up in the arms of someone I loved was a privilege I realized I'd never had before. What James and I shared—it wasn’t love. It was attraction, desire, and a mutual hunger to fill the hollow spaces inside us.
Grim’s fingers traced lazy circles along the curve of my back, a grounding, steady rhythm that calmed parts of me I hadn’t even realized were still trembling. At some point during the night, Reaper had weaseled his way into the room, his small, sleeping form curled at the foot of the bed.
I smiled at the sight.
Grim's voice rumbled low against my temple. "Are we going to talk about the dog?"
I tipped my chin up, catching his storm-colored eyes with my own, and answered sweetly, "No."
He chuckled, a sound I felt more than heard. "Then what would you like to talk about, Star?"
There was so much wecouldtalk about—the curse, the spirits, the consequences of last night.
But none of it felt pressing.
Not when his scent clung to my skin, not when the heat of him still wrapped around me like a second blanket.
I traced a slow circle over the sharp plane of his chest with my fingertip.
"Maybe," he said softly, "we can start with the way you sent those souls on." Grim shifted, sitting up further against the headboard, dragging the sheet with him. The soft morning light caught the jagged lines of old scars across his torso, badges of battles I knew he would never speak of unless asked. "It makes sense, considering you are able to bring back the dead... It would make sense that you could help them cross over, too."
He looked at me then, not as if I was fragile, but vital. A terrifying and yet awe inspiring creature.
“I healed you,” I said, a thread of wonder woven through my voice. I still wasn’t sure how I had managed it, and doubted I could do it again.
“Yes—” he started.
“Were those restless spirits?” I interrupted, the question bursting from me. “The ones who attacked you before?”
