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I kissed my way back up her body, settling my weight over her. When I positioned myself at her entrance, I paused, looking down at her flushed face, her kiss-swollen lips, her eyes dark with desire.

I kissed her—soft and deep and full of everything I couldn't put into words—and then I pushed inside her.

Slowly. So slowly. Savoring every inch, every sensation. The tight, wet heat of her. The way her body yielded to mine, taking me deeper. The small gasp she made when I was finally seated fully inside her.

“You feel like heaven,” I breathed against her lips. “Like coming home.”

She wrapped her legs around my waist, her hands sliding up my back. “Move,” she whispered. “Please, August. I need to feel you.”

Something flickered across her face—grief and gratitude tangled together—and I understood. She was memorizing me too. I did as she said. But not fast, not desperate. Slow, deep strokes that had us both trembling. I wanted to make this last. Wanted to draw it out until neither of us could remember where one ended and the other began.

“Faster,” she pleaded, nails digging into my shoulders. “August, please⁠—”

I gave her what she needed, increasing my rhythm but keeping that deliberate sensuality. Each thrust was purposeful, angled to make her gasp, to make her body arch into mine. I wanted her to feel cherished. Worshipped.

“Look at me,” I said softly. “Stay with me, darling. I want to see your eyes.”

She did, holding my gaze as I moved inside her. And in her eyes, I saw everything, fear and desperate hope all tangled together. It made my chest ache even as pleasure built at the base of my spine.

“I'm close,” she whispered, her body starting to tense around me. “August, I’m⁠—”

“Let go,” I urged, reaching between us to find that sensitive bundle of nerves.

When she came, it was with my name on her lips and tears streaming down her temples. Her body clenched around me like a fist, pulsing and fluttering. The sight of her—head thrown back, throat exposed, completely undone—was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

“That's it,” I murmured, kissing away her tears as I continued to move. “So beautiful when you fall apart for me.”

A few more thrusts and I was there, falling over the edge. The release hit me like a wave. Pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. I buried my face in her neck.

Afterward, as we lay entwined in the silver-washed darkness, she traced lazy patterns across my chest with fingers that still shook slightly.

“No matter what happens tomorrow,” she murmured, “I want you to remember this. Remember how perfectly we fit together.”

I caught her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “Even if the very heavens fall, I shall find you again in every lifetime.”

She smiled, moonlight catching in her eyes like captured stars. “Good.”

And as sleep finally claimed us, wrapped around each other as though we could hold back the dawn through will alone, I knew that whatever tomorrow brought, we had created something sacred in the darkness—a joining of souls that would transcend time itself.

CHAPTER 49

LILY

The Weave pulsed beneath my skin before dawn touched the treetops. It started as a hum in my fingertips. Light threading through the air like a whispered thought, and I knew without looking that Mira and Thessaly sensed it too. We’d called out through the current, sent word along the threads only Weavers could follow, and now. . . they were answering.

“They’re coming,” I said softly.

August stood beside me outside the cabin, eyes narrowed toward the forest. His jaw was tight, shoulders rigid with the kind of tension that came from returning to a place you'd sworn never to see again. Oxford lay just beyond these woods—his father's domain, his childhood prison.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked quietly.

His hand brushed the hilt of his blade, the same blade he'd once drawn against women like the ones now trusting him with their lives. “I spent my life as his weapon,” he said quietly. “Today I choose who I fight for.”

The clearing shifted.

A line of silver split the air near the tree line, shimmering like heat haze against morning frost. The portal unfurled—not with sound, but with pressure, as though the forest was holding its breath. And then Syra stepped through, her braid looped high atop her head like a crown woven from moonlight and judgment.

Behind her came others—thirty, maybe more—each cloaked in linen and resolve. Magic clung to them like second skin. The moment they crossed into the clearing, the Weave ignited beneath my ribs, welcoming them like kin returned from travel.