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“They’ll get better,” Shane offered. “Mine are better already.”
Holly grabbed Reggie by the hand and pulled her out the door, chattering all the way. Kat gave us a misty smile and backed toward the door. “I guess I’ll leave you two alone, then. And Cass? Thank you.”
“For what?” I said, exasperated.
“For ending it. It’s been hanging over us for so long. None of us really know what to do with ourselves now. How to behave. All the rules are suspended, all the parameters have flipped. It’s… mayhem. In a good way. If that makes sense.”
“Yeah,” I told her. “Perfect sense. But don’t thank me. It was a group effort.”
“Right, right. That’s your song, so you just go on and sing it. Later, babes.”
She shot us a conspiratorial smile and walked out, shutting the door behind her.
Shane approached the bed, looking helplessly at the bouquet that he held.
I glanced around the room and gestured toward the table by the wall. “Looks like there’s a vase over on the table. Thanks. They’re really pretty.”
Shane deposited the flowers into the vase and came over to sit next to me. We looked at each other, smiling. I felt bizarrely awkward and shy. Intensely excited.
“Have I thanked you yet?” I asked.
“For what? I can’t believe that rude shit I said to you on that phone call.”
I laughed. “Oh, please. I would never hold that against you. That was just Halliwell mind-fucking you. Besides, you listened to me. You saved Reggie, you saved me, you shot down Halliwell, you fished me out of the ocean. And you managed somehow not to die in the process. Yay, you. You get the gold star.”
“Do I?” He reached out to take my hand. “Can I choose my prize?”
My heart thumped. “And what prize might that be?”
He shrugged. “I thought maybe we could reopen that conversation we were having right before everything went to shit.”
“Um…” I racked my tired brains. “My life is sort of out of sequence at the moment. Remind me. What conversation was that?”
“The one about tempting the gods. The one where we were starting to talk about the future. Right before the worm ate SmokeScreen and Halliwell snatched you. It was a great conversation. Lots of great possibilities were alluded to. I didn’t want it to end.”
“Oh. That one.” I felt my face start to heat. My lungs squeezed joyfully.
“Just so you know, I’m ready to tempt the gods now,” he said. “I’m so crazy about you, I can’t see straight. I’ll rub the gods’ noses in it. Whatever they do to us, it can’t be worse than what we’ve already been through. I’m ready to accept on faith that you exist. You’re too good to be true, light years too good, but you’re true all the same. You break the rules of nature. You are fucking spectacular, Red. And I love you.”
I was flustered speechless. My face was even hotter, and now I couldn’t breathe at all. Particularly not when he pulled a small black velvet box out of his pocket.
“So,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “Here. Can’t blame a guy for hoping.”
I stared at the box, tear-blinded, as usual. I was so weepy now. It was a brand-new personality trait. Maybe that kind of sentimental goopiness just came right with being in love. Certainly I’d never experienced it before Shane came into my life.
“What’s this?” I asked. “Isn’t this a little premature? Are you sure? I can be really annoying, you know. I have all kinds of character defects you haven’t had a chance to get pissed off about yet.”
“So do I,” he admitted. “And absolutely, I’m sure. I am nailing this down at my earliest opportunity. Which is to say, the second that you’re conscious. And if you’re in a weakened and confused state, so much the better. I’ll take any advantages that luck and fate offer me. Open it.”
I opened the box, and stared down, astonished. A wide band of yellow and white gold formed a pattern of a crown, the points of which were decorated with rubies, the white gold studded with a milky sparkle of tiny diamonds. It was lavish, stunning. Utterly unique.
“Holly suggested it,” he said. “A crown, for the Red Queen. Frey is friends with a great goldsmith. He worked fast. While you were all drugged up.”
I couldn’t speak for several moments, but my choice had been made a long time ago, and it had been brilliantly clear to me the moment I leaped off Halliwell’s terrace.
Shane was my man. I wasn’t letting him slip away.
I slid the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly. It felt wonderful. Heavy, smooth, almost alive. “Wow. I sure do wish I wasn’t all bashed up in a hospital bed full of bullet holes. I’d rather hop right into your arms and be swept away to be ravished.”
