When he dropped his hands, the flowers returned to their paper, and the fireflies dimmed, white and wet once more. But I didn’t feel the cold. I stared at him for a while, memorizing the lines of his face with a sense of wonder. I’d been wrong about him. About everything. I’d been so very, very wrong.

A tremble of my lips betrayed me. “I’m sorry, Reid. I am out of control. I—I set Coco on fire this afternoon. Maybe . . . maybe you were right, and I shouldn’t use magic at all.”

“I spoke with Coco earlier. She told me what happened. She also said she’d exsanguinate me if I judged you for it.” He brushed the snow from my hair, swallowing hard. “Not that I ever would. Lou . . . we’ve both made mistakes. You’re a witch. I shouldn’t have resented you using magic. Just—don’t let it take you somewhere I can’t follow.” When he glanced out the window, my gaze followed instinctively, and I saw what he saw.

A cemetery.

He shook his head. “Where you go, I go, remember? You’re all I have now. I can’t lose you too.”

I crept into his lap. “What am I, Reid? Say it again.”

“You’re a witch.”

“And what are you?”

He didn’t hesitate, and my heart swelled. “I am too.”

“Only partly right, I’m afraid.” My smile—now genuine—grew at his confusion, and I leaned forward, rubbing my nose against his. He closed his eyes. “Allow me to fill in the gaps for you.” I kissed his nose. “You are a huntsman.” Though he recoiled slightly, I didn’t let him escape, kissing his cheek. “You are a son.” I kissed his other cheek. “You are a brother.” His forehead. “You are a husband.” His eyelids and his chin. “You are brave and strong and good.” And, finally, his lips. “But most important, you are loved.”

A fresh tear trickled down his face. I kissed it too. “You’re also sanctimonious and stubborn and short-tempered.” His eyes flicked open, and he frowned. I kissed his lips again. Gentle and slow. “Not to mention brooding, with a shit sense of humor.” When he opened his mouth to argue, I spoke over him. “But despite all that, you aren’t alone, Reid. You’ll never be alone.”

He stared at me for a long moment.

And then he was kissing me.

“I’m sorry too,” he breathed, hands cradling my face as he lowered me to the bed. Gently. So, so gently. But those hands burned as they trailed down my throat, down my chest. Burned and trembled. “I’m so sorry—”

I caught them before they could reach my belt. “Reid. Reid, we don’t have to do this. If it’s too soon—”

“Please.” When he looked at me, the longing in his eyes made my breath catch in my throat. I’d never seen anything so beautiful. “I can’t—I’ve never been good with words. Just—please. Let me touch you. Let me show you.”

Swallowing hard, I released his hands.

Slowly—so slowly I wanted to scream—he slid the velvet jacket from my shoulders, untucking my shirt and inching it up my torso, revealing the skin of my belly. My ribs. My chest. When I lifted my arms for him to continue, however, he carefully rolled the hem over my eyes and left it there. Blinding me. Trapping my arms in the sleeves.

When I wriggled in protest, he splayed a hand across my hip, stilling me. His lips moved lightly against my neck. “Don’t you trust me?”

The word rose to my lips, unbidden. “Always.”

“Prove it.”

I stopped straining abruptly. A chill swept through my entire body, lifting the hair on my arms, my neck, as I remembered.

Do as I say.

“Embrace me, Lou,” he repeated my own words back to me, trailing feather-light kisses on my throat, catching my earlobe gently in his teeth. I gasped. Though his body pinned mine to the mattress, he was careful to support his weight with his elbows. I wished he wouldn’t. I wanted to feel him. All of him. “Embrace us.”

Let me show you how powerful you could be. My hateful words seemed to echo around us. Let me show you how weak you are.

“You don’t have to be afraid.” If possible, his touch—his lips—turned even gentler. He trailed a finger between my breasts, and fresh gooseflesh erupted in his wake. I shivered, my knees shaking. “Let me show you how much you mean to me. Let me show you how loved you are.” His lips followed after his hand, each kiss reverent. Each a vow. “I’ll never take you for granted. I’ll want you every day for the rest of my life, and I’ll love you even after.”

“Reid—”

“Do you want to kiss me?” His finger stilled on my waistband, and I nodded, breathless. I knew the next words before he spoke them. I reveled in them. “Show me.”

In a single, smooth motion, he pulled the shirt over my head.

I was on him in a second. He landed on his back with a soft laugh, which I captured in a kiss. He laughed again at my enthusiasm, arms tightening around me, before rising up to his elbows to help me tear his shirt from his pants. I shucked it over his head and to the floor, pushed him back against the bed and straddled his waist.

“Have I told you,” I said, bending low to whisper in his ear, “how beautiful you are when you smile?”

He smiled then, the kind of smile that dimpled his cheek and set my heart on fire. “Tell me.”

“Sometimes when I look at you, I can’t breathe.” My hand moved to his belt. “I can’t think. I can’t function until you look back. And when you give me this smile”—I brushed my knuckle against his dimple—“it’s like a secret just for the two of us. I don’t think I ever love you more than when you smile at me.”

He chuckled in disbelief at the words, but the sound faded into nothing as we stared at each other. As he slowly realized their truth. And they were true. Each of Reid’s smiles—so rare, so genuine—was a gift to me. He couldn’t know how much I cherished them, how I wished I could keep them in my pocket to pull out whenever he felt sad. He felt sad so often.

After all this was over, I’d make sure he never felt sad again.

He ran his fingertips down my ribs, lingering on my waist. “I want to know all your secrets.”

“My secrets are ugly, Reid.”

“Not to me.” He swallowed hard when I inched my hand beneath his belt. Lower still. “I meant what I said after Modraniht. I’ve never met anyone like you. You make me feel alive, and I just”—he gasped at my touch—“I want to share everything with you.”

I pressed my free fingers to his lips. “And you will.”

I released him only to ease his pants down his hips, his thighs, his ankles, trailing kisses down every inch of pale skin I revealed. He shuddered beneath me but mostly kept still . . . until I took him in my mouth. His hips bucked involuntarily then, and he lurched upright. “Lou—”

I placed a hand against his chest to still him. “Do you want me to stop?”

He groaned, falling backward and clenching his eyes shut. “No.”

“Then open your eyes. Don’t hide from me.”

Though he seemed to have difficulty drawing breath, he did as I asked. Slowly, his eyes fluttering open and shut, he flexed into me. Every muscle in his body went taut. He flexed again. A fine sheen of sweat coated his skin. Again. His throat worked, and his mouth parted. Again and again and again. He fisted his hands in the bedsheets and threw his head back, breathing ragged, body on the edge of losing control—

Lunging forward suddenly, he yanked at my pants, and I twisted to oblige, helping him drag them down my legs. When they caught on my shoes, he made a low, impatient sound, and my stomach knotted with anticipation. I shucked each boot off hastily, ignoring the notes that fluttered to the floor. Ignoring everything but his hard body on mine. When we fell back to the bed, tangled in every possible way, I clung to him, reveling in the way he moved, in the way his hips fitted between my legs and his hands braced against the headboard. In the heat of his skin. Of his gaze.

He didn’t hide from me.

Each emotion played in his eyes, uninhibited, and I consumed them all, kissing every part of his damp face between breaths, between gasps. Desire. Joy. Wonder. He moved faster, determined—chasing each raw emotion as it came—and I followed, digging my fingertips into the hard muscle of his back. Though I was desperate to close my eyes—to revel in the sensation—I couldn’t stop looking at him. He couldn’t stop looking at me. Trapped in each other’s eyes, helpless to stop ourselves, we built and built until we shattered, baring ourselves to each other at last.

Not just our bodies.

Our souls.

And in that moment when we fell apart . . . we came together again as something new.

Part III

Qui vivra verra.

He who lives, shall see.

—French proverb

The Last Note

Lou