CHAPTER 82 #2
The doctor leaned forward quickly, checking her pupils, pulse. Checking everything.
He looked back straight at Kaelith. A disbelieving smile slowly touched his lips.
“This…” He shook his head. “This is medically impossible.”
Another nurse covered her mouth, tears flooding her eyes. The doctor exhaled sharply.
“…It’s a miracle.”
Kaelith’s breathing turned ragged. His dark eyes slowly moved toward Amara.
Her fingers moved. Just slightly. Tiny. Barely noticeable.
But to him… It felt like the earth had shifted.
“Move him back,” the doctor ordered quickly. “Give her space.”
Kaelith didn’t move. Couldn’t to be more precise.
Two nurses gently pulled him backward.
His boots dragged against the floor.
His eyes never left her.
Her lashes fluttered.
Amara opened her eyes and a sharp breath tore from Kaelith’s chest. His pupils dilated. His entire body went rigid.
No.
No… no…
This wasn’t real.
Couldn’t be real.
Her gaze wandered weakly across the ceiling… across the lights… across the strangers… until it found him. And stayed there.
Kaelith’s lips parted.
His breathing became uneven.
His hands shook violently at his sides.
“Kaelith,” Lorcan whispered beside him.
But he heard nothing.
Saw nothing.
Except her.
Alive.
Breathing.
Looking at him.
His flower.
His everything. As if taken away and returned back.
His chest rose sharply. Tears blurred his vision so badly he could barely see her. Yet somehow… he’d never seen anything more clearly in his life.
Amara’s cracked lips trembled. And though no sound came… he read them perfectly.
Hi.
A strangled, broken laugh escaped him as tears streamed freely down his face. And for the first time in his life… the most feared man in the world looked utterly, devastatingly human.
He pressed his back against the wall, as if all the weight left him, gravity defied him, lord showed mercy, and whispered.
“…Welcome back, little flower.”
Epilogue
Three Years Later…
Morning arrived softly over the De Luca estate.
Golden sunlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting the dark wooden floors in shades of amber and gold. The storm that had once lived inside these walls had long since faded, replaced by laughter… by warmth… by life.
By her.
Kaelith stood barefoot in the nursery doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame, his dark hair tousled from sleep, the first few buttons of his black shirt undone.
And in his arms was compete chaos.
“Papa!”
A tiny girl with wild dark hair and her mother’s impossible eyes squealed as she wrapped her little arms around his neck.
“Up! Up!”
“Princess,” Kaelith murmured, his deep voice still rough with sleep as he kissed her chubby cheek. “You are already up.”
A little boy sat on the carpet nearby, glaring at his wooden blocks as if they had personally insulted him.
Kaelith smirked.
That one…
That one was his.
Grey blue eyes.
Dark hair.
And a temper that could bring grown men to their knees.
“Lucian.”
The little boy looked up.
“Come here.”
Lucian immediately stood, wobbling on tiny legs before marching toward him with the seriousness of a general heading into war.
Kaelith bent down and scooped him up with one arm.
Now he held both.
One on each side.
One laughing.
One plotting world domination.
And despite everything…
Despite the empire.
Despite the blood.
Despite the darkness that still whispered his name in the shadows, this was the richest he had ever been.
His gaze lifted and his breathing softened.
Amara stood by the doorway.
Barefoot.
Wrapped in one of his oversized shirts that hung off one shoulder.
Her hair messy.
Her face bare.
The most breathtaking thing he had ever seen.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Because three years later, he still looked at her like she had come back from the dead.
Because she had.
Amara smiled softly.
Kaelith forgot how to breathe.
“Are you just going to stare,” she teased softly, “or are you going to help your wife?”
His jaw tightened.
The twins giggled.
He handed both children to Martha waiting nearby. Ignoring their dramatic protests. Ignoring everything. Because his wife had spoken.
And Kaelith De Luca had never been very good at denying her.
The second the nursery door closed, he was on her.
One arm around her waist. The other cupping her jaw. Pulling her flush against him.
“Kaelith—”
He kissed her and it still made her knees weak after all these years.
It reminded her of things she survived. She healed.
She lived.
It had taken a year. A whole year of nightmares. Of waking up screaming. Of trembling at shadows. Of crying in his arms. Of remembering Abigail. Of mourning. Of breaking.
And every single night, Kaelith held her. Never once asking her to heal faster. Never once letting her fight alone.
He stayed.
Lorcan still visited from time to time, usually with whiskey, sarcasm, and enough toys to spoil the twins rotten.
Abigail… Abigail was gone. And Rafael? No one spoke much about him anymore.
Some ghosts didn’t deserve resurrection.
Some chapters were meant to stay buried.
Kaelith pressed his forehead against Amara’s.
His thumb brushed over her wedding ring.
The same ring.
“I love them,” he whispered.
Amara smiled knowingly.
“But?”
Kaelith’s dark eyes dropped to her lips.
His mouth curved.
“But not more than I love you.”
Her cheeks warmed.
“Good answer.”
He kissed her again and pulled his wife closer and whispered against her skin.
“Forever wasn’t enough for us, little flower.”
And as Amara smiled into his chest, surrounded by the family they bled for… fought for… lived for, she realized, some love stories were meant to be easy.
Oh eternal and savage. Only bound by virtue.