Page 79 of Impawssible Magic

“Were you expecting telepathy? Shared dreams? A mystical mind-meld?”

“I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint. You get a permanent internal compass that points at me, and I get...” I touch the mark on my shoulder. Feel the warmth of it. “I’m not sure what I get. But something changed.”

He studies me in the dim light, firelight casting shadows across his face. “The Preservers said you have mate potential. That witches with that signature could pair with shifters.”

“Pair.” I wrinkle my nose. “Clinical word for what we just did.”

“Would you prefer ‘made passionate love under the mystical bonds of fate’?”

“God, no. That’s worse. That’s so much worse.”

His laugh is low. Surprised. Like he didn’t expect to find humor here.

“I love you.”

The words fall into the silence.

I go still. My heart stops, restarts, hammers against my ribs.

“What?”

“I love you.” He says it again, simple and certain. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like he’s been holding it back for weeks and finally let it loose. “I’ve been fighting it since the moment I saw you. Telling myself it was a pull I couldn’t explain. But it’s not. It’s you. The way you refuse to stay down no matter how many times life knocks you over.”

His hand cups my face. Thumb brushing away tears I didn’t realize I’d shed.

“I love you, Leire Firesinger. And I’m done pretending otherwise.”

I should say it back.

The words are right there, burning on my tongue. I love you too. Four syllables that would change everything.

But I’ve been burned before. Believed before. Trusted before.

“I—” My voice catches.

“You don’t have to say it back.” He watches me with steady eyes. Patient. Understanding. “I’m not asking for a return. I just needed you to know.”

“It’s not that I don’t feel it.” The words tumble out, clumsy and desperate. “It’s that the last time I loved someone—the last time I trusted completely—he testified against me. Helped exile me. I lost everything. I want to say it. I want to. But⁠—”

“But words have weight.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “And you’ve had too many people throw them around without meaning them.”

“Yes.” Relief at being understood. At not having to explain. “Exactly.”

“Then show me instead.” His arms tighten around me. “Stay. Tonight. And when you’re ready—if you’re ever ready—you can say the words.”

“That sounds like forever.”

“Would that be so bad?”

I think about it. Really think, with every ounce of pragmatic cynicism I’ve earned.

Forever with this man. This intense, protective, occasionally terrifying man who looks at me like I’m his whole world. Who fought through an army to reach me. Who showed me his terrible fish pillow and the soft parts he hides from everyone else.

“No.” I curl closer to him, my head finding the hollow of his shoulder. “I don’t think it would be bad at all.”

Later—much later, after sleep claimed us both and dawn light crept through the windows—I wake in his arms.