Page 144 of The Immortal’s Mark

Someone who knows what I am. What I’ve done. Six hundred and forty-four deaths. Eight centuries of running. Blood under my fingernails and ghosts trailing behind me like a bad reputation. I’ve been a killer, a thief, a weapon for hire. I’ve done things that would make most people flinch, and I’ve done them well, and I’ve survived them, and I’ve never let anyone close enough to see the full scope of the wreckage.

He’s seen it. All of it. The death count and the gallows humor and the way I use jokes like armor because the alternative is actually feeling things.

He wants me anyway.

“This,” I finally say. Inadequate. True.

His arm tightens around me. Just slightly. Just enough.

“You have it,” he says.

Three words. Terrifying ones. But they’re real. We both know they’re real.

I let the silence hold it for us.

I’m almost asleep when the door opens.

We both freeze. My hand goes for a knife that isn’t there—under the pillow, old habit, except I’m not in my own room and my knives are somewhere on the floor with my clothes—

An orange shape saunters through the door like he owns the place. Tail high. Completely unbothered by imperial security or locked doors or the basic concept of privacy.

“How,” Ren says flatly.

“He’s learned to open doors.”

“That door was locked.”

“He’s ambitious.”

Dumpling leaps onto the bed, circles twice with the air of a creature selecting the optimal napping coordinates, and settles directly between us. On Ren’s kidney, specifically. He kneads the blanket, claws flexing, and begins to purr.

Ren looks at me. I look at Ren.

We’re both trying very hard not to laugh.

We both fail.

The laughter breaks something loose in my chest—not the bad kind of breaking, but the kind that releases pressure you didn’t know you were holding. Life is absurd. Joy is allowed. I’m naked in bed with the Dragon Emperor and my cat has just claimed my stomach as his personal throne and somehow this is my life now.

Real. All of it. Real.

“He’s sleeping between us,” Ren observes.

“He always sleeps between us.”

“He’s a menace.”

“He’s your menace now too. Congratulations.”

Dumpling purrs louder. Smug. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

I scratch behind his ears and let my other hand find Ren’s in the dark. Our fingers lace together over Dumpling’s vibrating body. Ridiculous. Perfect.

I’m still here.

Dawn comes soft. Golden light through silk curtains, jasmine drifting up from the garden below, the palace waking around us in a whisper of distant bells and servant footsteps.

Ren wakes slow, blinking, and for a moment there’s something vulnerable on his face—surprise, maybe, or hope, or the fear that I’ll already be gone. Eight centuries and I recognize that expression. I’ve seen it on everyone I’ve ever left.