The Finisher (Dark Verse, #4)

by RuNyx

"I want to eat your smile, sunshine," he said against her mouth. "Swallow it whole and light up my insides with it."

"And one day, I'll get out of this shithole. Get rich. Build you a house. Get dogs. You like dogs, right?"

"And one day, when I have money, I'm going to buy you the prettiest ring, sunshine. Would you take that?" She pulled back, her hands cupping his shaven cheeks. "I would love nothing more." He dropped a kiss to her lips. "My sunshine. Lighting me up from the insides."

Zephyr laughed. "Okay. What if a boy comes to flirt with me while you're not here?" His eyes darkened. "Tell him you're mine. He'd get away if he knows what's good for him."

And he’d missed it. For the entire time he’d been away, he’d missed her.

Alpha sat outside her apartment building, pondering over all the possibilities, and wondered when this farce of a marriage had become so important to him.

He hadn’t had enough of her light. There was so much more to be had between them, so much that he’d been denying them both deliberately. She'd snuck in, whether he'd wanted to or not, and now he didn't want her gone. It was a realization that he had something to lose, for the first time since his mother died.

“She loves you,” Zenith said quietly in the space between them, tilting his world askew. “And she’ll kill me for telling you this, but she’s loved you for a very long time.” “You forgot me.” Fuck. She'd been a part of his life. Had he loved her once too? Had his dead heart felt something for her at a time he couldn't remember?

“I miss you, rainbow.”

“I cut the hand of a man who touched your hair, Zephyr. What do you think I’m going to do to the one you move on with?”

“I might not remember you,” he whispered, his lips almost at hers. “But you’re my wife now. Mine. And I’d bathe this whole city in blood before I let you change that.”

“My life has been nothing but gray for as long as I remember,” he told her softly. “Rainstorms and thunder clouds that never went away. You filtered through that, all bright colors and exuberance and life. And the clouds are still there, but my eyes can’t leave the rainbow long enough to see them. You changed things. And I’m not letting that go, Zephyr. I’m not letting you go. Get that out of your head right now.”

“I didn’t realize how much I missed your touch. You gave a starved man a feast every day until he forgot what hunger felt like, and then took it away.”

“I’m sorry I forgot you,” he told her quietly, and Zephyr soaked up the moment, his sincerity, his softness, his touch. She patted his scar. “It’s not your fault.” He leaned in, giving her a tender kiss. “We’ll make this work?”

“That’s the way my world works, Zephyr. The message you send is the man you are. I might be your husband in here, but out there? I am the Alpha. So, I’m going to fight in that ring, and you, my dear wife, are going to

sit in the front like last time and cheer for me, and show everyone that you may be small, but you’re not weak.”

He never wanted to tell her, but the best thing she could have done for them and their relationship had been to leave. It had shaken him up enough to make him open his eye and realize a life with her was something he wanted, a future with her was something he craved. It was extraordinary—the little things she kept adding to his life.

"Don't leave me again, rainbow," he spoke quietly in the space between them. "I don't know if I'll ever remember anything. I don't know if what I feel is love. I don't know what the future

holds. But I know I want you by my side. I know I don't want to forget you now."

Zephyr melted, her heart softening. She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "I'm not going anywhere, handsome. I've loved you as a boy, and I love you as a beast. All of you has always been loved by me." They shared the air for a long moment. "Remember when I told you my heart was a dead scar tissue?" "Hmm." "I feel it pumping again with you. My lifeblood. My little rainbow." A...

and Tristan not talking at all. But he did sit with his arm around Morana, his fingers touching her neck and the romantic in her slightly swooned at that.