Page 147 of Property of Scar

Her shoulder presses into mine, our fingers lacing together, and she doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just watches the room with me. Watching Carnage and Sentinel get absolutely buried under the affection of brothers who have been waiting for this moment for longer than the prospects realized.

Her warmth moves through the bond, and I look at her.

She’s watching Raze and Roxy across the room, Raze with his arm wrapped around her, Roxy laughing at something with her head tipped back and that wild magic of hers sparking between her fingers like she’s forgotten she’s doing it. The look on Raze’s face, that expression that belongs only to that woman, that shade of contentment that centuries of knowing him never prepared me to see him wear, it doesn’t hit me the way it once did. It doesn’t carve something hollow into my chest.

It just looks like what it is.

Love.

Found late.

Held tight.

Permanent.

Cali turns her head and looks up at me, the warm light catching in her eyes, holding there as if it belongs to her, and for a second, the rest of the room falls away around the edges.

It’s just her.

The way she looks at me is like I’m already worth something. Like I didn’t walk in here carrying centuries of damage I can’t undo.

Something in my chest shifts hard under it.

Because I know, with a certainty that doesn’t leave space for anything else…

I’d choose her.

Again.

Without hesitation.

Without question.

It doesn’t matter the cost.

It doesn’t matter what came before.

It’s her.

It’s always going to be her.

Her fingers tighten around mine, and I tighten my grip in return, pulling her closer without thinking, like I don’t trust the space between us to stay empty for long.

The celebration roars around us, and we hold each other in the center of it, quiet inside the noise, steady inside the chaos, and for the first time, the present tense doesn’t just feel like enough.

It feels like everything.

And I finally feel at peace, because Cali has my entire heart, and I’m not letting her go now that I have her.

Chapter Thirty-Two

CALYPSO

The Next Day

I’m not leaving.

That’s what I keep telling myself, standing in the middle of Scar’s room with my arms folded across my chest while my gaze roams over the space like I’m looking for a reason to walk away.