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My throat is dry. I swallow thickly. “You love me.” “Then.” His hands cup my face. “Now.” My lips brush his. “Always. And I’ll find your shoes for you in every lifetime if you’ll allow it.”
“At least if it were me in that Pit, I would have ensured my own death instead of hers.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Kitt counters. “That is precisely why I couldn’t let you in that arena. You would have sacrificed your life for her. And I refuse to lose you.”
“Ellie, am I wearing a veil?” “I would happily beg you not to.” My heart stutters at the sudden sound of his voice. I turn toward it slowly, fabric swishing around my ankles. Kai stands in the doorway,
“Oh?” I challenge breathlessly. “Don’t deprive me of seeing your face one last time.” I falter. “It wouldn’t be the last time.” “It wouldn’t be the same,” he answers quickly.
“Don’t,” Kai practically chokes. “Don’t walk toward me wearing that dress.” I’ve never heard the Enforcer sound so shaken. “It only reminds me that I won’t be the one awaiting you at the end of that aisle.”
I blink at his retreating form. “Where are you going?” His palms rise as if accepting defeat. “Somewhere you cannot torture me, Gray.”
I’ve never seen something so beautiful, so bold, so blatantly right for me, for this kingdom, this hope of a united Ilya. And I fear I may forever be in awe of her.
The hushed whisper meets my ears, spurring me to step forward. “Bend the knee to your future queen of Ilya.”
“See”—I point my fork at her—“if you call me pretty, I hear only the compliment. Not the threat.”
He tilts his head, wearing a dimple-framed grin. “I’m quite good with corsets.”
“I love you, Pae.” I say this sternly, unforgivingly. “And I am honored to get the chance to.”
And if, in the next lifetime, you choose to steal from me again, I would happily give you my soul if it meant a place beside yours. But until then, I will watch you become another’s reason to thank the Plague. You, Pae, are my inevitable. (I love you.)
Paedyn rivaled me, the stars, the very sea with her gaze. She had me in the palm of her hand the moment she grabbed mine in that alley. And for the first time since I was a boy, fear gripped my heart. Right then and there, I knew she would be my undoing.
Mother’s warning came far too late. She is not only my weakness—she is my everything.
My skin smells of her. My heart aches for her. The Enforcer bows to her.
would have kneeled for her a hundred times over, not for duty but devotion.
“Majesty, I have many titles for you. Not all are appropriate to shout.”
“And I have been mourning you since the day we left that poppy field!”
“We will always be inevitable, Pae. But in this lifetime, we are doomed. Today was evidence of that. It’s…” He swallows. “It’s best we move on.”
“Bury me…” Kitt takes several shallow breaths. Then he smiles. “Under the willow tree. I… I won’t be lonely there.”
Kitt slips that steel band free. And with the last of his dwindling strength, whispers, “Love each other for me.”
I shake my head, forever astounded by her. “No. You are strength. Life itself. That is why Death fears you.” “All I do is fear Death,” she corrects. “Fear losing you.” It hurts to smile. “Death knows better than to try and drag me from you.”
“And you are forever my undoing, Paedyn Gray.”
“Marry me, Pae. I’m already on one knee, but I’ll get down on both and beg for you, if you like.”
“Because I love you, Paedyn Gray. And I will happily spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you.”
“I love you,” she says, suddenly stern. “And I will spend the rest of my life shouting it until even Astrum hears, because it is Death who should fear me if he ever tries to take you away.”
“Bad luck is far less concerning than Pae is with an empty stomach and a dagger in hand.” Annoyingly, my lips twitch into a smile. “If you’re afraid of me, Azer, just say so.”
Kai’s voice is touched with awe on the other side of my door. “You know I would be a fool not to be, darling.”
“At the end of a blade, I would love you. Until it pierced my throat, I would say ‘yes’ to you.”
She is my dream. She is my piece of paradise. She is my inevitable.
I breathe in my bride. She tastes like my forever.
“The quiet.” He brushes a long strand of hair from my face. “The open space. The lack of handsome strangers to rob.”
