Page 103 of Sweet Heart

“I am not sure how to move on from here yet,” I say, my voice still a bit rough around the edges, “but you are right. I am still the same surgeon with the same skills and experience.”

“I never liked hospital politics,” she replies dryly, and she rolls her eyes.

I let out a soft chuckle, the feeling almost foreign in my chest at this point, and she smiles brightly.

“Yeah,” I relent a little, “they can be really savage.”

“Yep.” Riley pushes herself up from the chair and walks to the door. She pauses for a moment and drags her eyes over me with a gentle smile tugging at her lips.

“But you are resilient, Doctor Durand. Don’t let them forget that.”

And with that, she disappears through the door, not allowing any room for me to fight her on it or to even question the statement. So instead, I find myself smiling while I finally come back into my own. And damn, if it doesn’t feel good.

Chapter 37

Mary

The manticore’s tail cut through the air with a wet hiss and lashed toward her chest in one fast motion. The blackened stinger glinted in the moonlight like a promise sharpened into venom. She moved before fear could stop her. Stepping aside in one smooth motion, she swung her sword up overhead. The momentum set her spinning away from the barb and closer to the muscular body. She didn’t think, she didn’t pause, she didn’t hesitate. Her movements felt older than thought itself, led by the voices that were now one with her core, until her weapon descended and steel found the center of the creature.

The sheer force with which it collided with the bone and tendons vibrated through every inch of her body and made her teeth clatter. The manticore staggered at her feet, its face now contorted and almost human. It snarled at her one more time before it collapsed into the dirt, blood spreading black beneath it. The sound was almost too quiet for the ending of a life. A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn’t bother to wipe it away. In death, the wounded creature looked more human than monstrous, after all.

One by one, the voices fell quiet, ceasing to exist in separation, until she could no longer tell where they ended and she began.

A new queen had risen, but this victory tasted too much like grief to feel holy.

My fingers shake when I finish the closing paragraph, and for a moment I hesitate. I know what comes next, just like she did. A moment that should be joyous but washes over me like grief instead. I am not ready to say goodbye to the woman I’ve spent the last ten months with. The one who haunted my dreams, whispered encouragements when I struggled, and grew alongside me. She is a part of me now, and writing those words…

Writing those words means you are ready for your next adventure.

My eyes brim when my fingertips touch the keys and I write the closing line.

The end.

I stare at it a little longer and allow myself to feel the sudden separation of a family that only exists in my mind. Reduced back to the work of fiction that they are. Then my lip curls up in a bittersweet smile. It’s done.

Just as I lean back to think about what comes next, I hear the soft click of the front door closing. My eyes dart to the corner of my screen, and I see it’s already almost nine. I curse quietly and push myself away from the desk. My body protests, and I make a mental note to set timers for stretching that I will undoubtedly ignore before I step into the living room.

Cat is taking off her heels in the hall, but her eyes instantly find mine. They are puffy and red-rimmed, sunken in ashen skin. But as soon as we connect, a flash of relief comes over her, and I see a heaviness fall away.

“Baby,” I whisper as I step toward her with my hand outstretched.

She closes her eyes for a beat and shakes her head, steps into my arms, and puts her head on my shoulder.

“What happened?”

“It was rough,” she murmurs against my skin. “It finally happened today…” She pauses and looks at me. “The sudden pushback of my second just as we had expected.” She pulls me against her a little closer, her breath ghosting my skin. “For the first time in my life, I felt like I was in the wrong place.”

“No,” I say more sharply than I intend to.

She freezes for a moment and then starts to chuckle softly against me. Her body shakes softly, sending a string of vibrations through mine as she pulls away a little to look at me with amusement.

“Tell me how you really feel,” she smirks. “No, I know it’s not true, amor,” she continues before I can object. “But it felt like it for a little while.”

“What changed?”

“Riley.”

My eyebrows shoot up to somewhere in my hairline when the unexpected name falls from her lips.