Page 141 of Property of Scar

Then, slowly, the shaking eases. His grip gentles. The bond settles back into its low, steady hum, warm, certain, and completely real.

His mouth leaves my throat on a rough exhale, his body shuddering, and I hold onto him through every second of it with my face pressed into his hair and my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips.

For a long moment, we’re both just still—tangled, wrecked, and breathing.

His tongue moves gently over the marks at my throat, closing them, and I shiver at the tenderness of it more than I shivered at anything else.

“Still insufferable?” he asks, against my skin.

“Completely,” I say. “Don’t change a thing.”

He makes a quiet sound that might, from anyone else, be called a laugh, and pulls me closer.

The bond pulses between us, quiet and steady, while his arms tighten.

Outside, the clubhouse continues in the dark. Inside this room, something locks into place.

Quiet.

Final.

No going back.

“You scared the hell out of me,” I say into the silence after a while.

“I know.” His hand moves in my hair, slow and rhythmic. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“I’ll do my best…” He pauses. “No promises.”

“Scar.”

“Calypso.” There’s warmth in it. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

I press my face into his chest, let myself believe him, and the bond hums between us like a promise neither of us needs words to make.

Because we don’t

I can feel it, and so can he.

Words can wait.

Chapter Thirty-One

SCAR

One Week Later

The guilt doesn’t disappear when you decide to live. It just stops being the thing that runs you.

I learned that in the days after the sleeping cage.

I wake each morning with it already there, settled across my chest, all years of weight that feels as familiar as the scar carved into my face. For a beat, just one, I wait for it to do what it always does… to pull me under. To drag me back into the dark water where Astrid lives, where her eyes replay on a loop that never lets me forget the exact second I failed her.

It doesn’t.

It stays where it is.