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And through it all, we have kept living.

Wining and dining, as he calls it with the absolute seriousness of a man who has decided courtship may continue after bonding because his mate deserves every century of effort he can give. He takes me to private rooftop dinners under warded moonlight. Brings me old books annotated in the margins with his own memories. He bought me a whole weapons room, then argued with me for forty minutes about display lighting.

He found my parents’ burial place.

That was not romantic in any conventional sense.

We went at midnight, because sunlight remains a rude personal attack. The cemetery was overgrown, neglected, hidden under false records and six years of grief I had never properly unpacked. Valentin stood beside me while I laid lilies on their graves. He didn’t speak too much; didn’t try to make sorrow elegant. He simply held my hand while I cried so hard my knees gave out.

For better or worse, right? Or whatever the vampire equivalent is.

Blood and eternity, probably.

The mark at his throat has not fully receded. That’s the part no one says too loudly.

The countdown has stopped, Rowan insists. The mating bond took, and the Blood Chrysalis route Selphine tried to exploit has been altered by our joined blood.

But the mark remains. Silver-dark, beautiful, yet still present. A reminder that the curse has not ended.

It has changed shape. Spread into the wider story. The Five Blood have awakened to a new phase of Morrighan’s war.

And we are not pregnant yet.

Two weeks before the old clock would have run out, Valentin and I have accepted that whatever happens happens.

Mostly.

Acceptance apparently involves my mate wining and dining me, worshipping me, guarding me, making love to me in every room he can reasonably lock, and then very generously fucking me senseless whenever I give him so much as a look.

I’m a willing participant in this scientific campaign.

Very willing.

Deeply committed to the research.

Still, some nights I wake and find his hand resting low on my stomach, his gaze distant in the dark.

Those are the nights I cover his hand with mine. The nights neither of us jokes.

Rowan visits often.

She looks healthier these days, though she would bite anyone who said so. Tonight, she stands in Valentin’s study, examining the Heartshard Glass while I sit curled in the window seat, watching them pretend this is a normal meeting rather than a gathering of ancient beings who have survived one apocalypse and are scheduling the next.

Valentin pours blood-wine into two glasses and asks the question he has asked in three different ways for weeks. ‘I owe you a larger debt.’

Rowan does not turn from the Glass. ‘You owe me several.’

His mouth curves. ‘Name what you want.’

She’s quiet long enough that even the Tower seems to listen. Then she says, ‘You kept me hidden for decades.’

He nods regally.

‘That will forever be enough,’ she adds.

I glance between them, cataloguing another fragment of history neither of them will explain unless emotionally cornered.

‘Are you planning to go back into hiding?’ Valentin asks.