Page 314 of Sky’s Edge

I had to give him that too.

“You as well,” I said.

“Those she sent were easily dispatched. It was a distraction. It was designed to pull me from you so you’d be vulnerable. You were meant to perish. You were meant to perish to cause me pain. As Laura was, so Aleksei’s mate would go unfulfilled. Her MO is pain. Pain, loss and control.”

“And power,” I added.

“And that.”

Fuck this.

Fuck her.

We were on Sigil.

We’d had three weeks of peace, togetherness and settling in with each other.

Now, Laura’s beast was cavorting in the snow, for hells’ sake.

“We have flowers to lay, baby,” I whispered through my scarf, lifting the bouquet.

“You’re right,” he murmured. “Enough of that.”

He touched his nose to mine again (so adorable!), let me go and bent to put Hurley in the basket at the back of his Sprint.

He bent again to give Avie a full-spine stroke before he swung onto the Sprint, I got on after him, he fired it up, and we took off.

For a while, Avie raced beside us.

Then he veered off in another direction.

Not long later, we stopped at Darynda’s resting place.

It was the same as before, except I noticed a couple of lynx slinking into the forest beyond the marble monument as we got close.

Like they knew she lay there.

Like that was a bond that wouldn’t break, even in death.

Maybe they did, and it was.

In the end, it was simply sweet…and deserved.

We alighted the Sprint, and after I gave Tanyn the bouquet, I hung back again as he approached.

I gave him time.

He took it.

And then he turned to me and stretched an arm my way.

I was his.

And he was mine.

She was his.

And he was hers.