Page 80 of Impawssible Magic

The claiming mark pulses warm against my shoulder. My magic hums where it’s woven into his skin. He’s still asleep—the first peaceful rest I’ve seen from him, his face soft in ways it never is when he’s awake.

I watch him breathe. Count the scars I learned last night. Trace the shape of his mouth, his jaw, the silver at his temple that tells a story he finally trusts me with.

He loved before. Genuinely. And that doesn’t threaten me—if anything, it makes me trust him more. A man who can love that deeply, who can tend a garden for five years because letting it die would mean letting her go⁠—

That’s a man who knows how to commit. How to stay. How to fight for the people he cares about.

His eyes open. Find mine immediately.

“Morning.” His voice is rough. Beautiful.

“Morning.” I press a kiss to his jaw.

“Watching me sleep?”

“Just thinking.”

“Dangerous habit.”

“I have several. It’s part of my charm.”

He pulls me closer, one arm curling around my waist. Outside, the light coming through the mountain pines is pale and clean, the kind of early morning that feels like a beginning. Somewhere in Mistvale, the town is waking up to a new day—a day after battle, after victory, after everything changed.

I take a breath. Feel the rightness of this moment settle into my bones.

“I love you.”

He locks in place beneath me.

“I love you.” Easier now. Like the words have been waiting and I just needed to get out of their way. “I love your intensity and your dry humor and your reputation. I love that you let Torin give you a pillow with a terrible fish on it.”

“It’s supposed to be⁠—”

“I know what it’s supposed to be. It’s a fish. Everyone knows it’s a fish. The entire Protection Network knows it’s a fish. They’re just too polite to tell him.”

His expression shifts. Horror. “Everyone? I need to have a conversation with Veren.”

“Later.” I prop myself up on his chest. Meet his eyes in the morning light. “I love you, Aslan Nexis. Even though I called you murder cat behind your back.”

“You called me murder cat to my face.”

“Also that.”

“And to your crystals. While you were alone. Thinking no one could hear.”

I wince. “Tiger hearing is really unfair.”

“You had an entire debate with a piece of rose quartz about whether my intensity was ‘sexy-scary’ or ‘scary-scary.’”

“In my defense⁠—”

“You concluded it was both.”

“I stand by that assessment.”

He laughs. Full and real and warm, the sound filling the cabin and seeping into my bones. I’m mortified, yes. I’m also laughing with him. Because what else can I do?

We’re a mess. Both of us. Broken in different ways, scarred by different wounds, carrying enough baggage to fill a warehouse.