19. Leire #3
He loved before. Genuinely. And that doesn’t threaten me—if anything, it makes me trust him more. A man who can love that deeply, who can tend a garden for five years because letting it die would mean letting her go—
That’s a man who knows how to commit. How to stay. How to fight for the people he cares about.
His eyes open. Find mine immediately.
“Morning.” His voice is rough. Beautiful.
“Morning.” I press a kiss to his jaw.
“Watching me sleep?”
“Just thinking.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“I have several. It’s part of my charm.”
He pulls me closer, one arm curling around my waist. Outside, the light coming through the mountain pines is pale and clean, the kind of early morning that feels like a beginning. Somewhere in Mistvale, the town is waking up to a new day—a day after battle, after victory, after everything changed.
I take a breath. Feel the rightness of this moment settle into my bones.
“I love you.”
He locks in place beneath me.
“I love you.” Easier now. Like the words have been waiting and I just needed to get out of their way. “I love your intensity and your dry humor and your reputation. I love that you let Torin give you a pillow with a terrible fish on it.”
“It’s supposed to be—”
“I know what it’s supposed to be. It’s a fish. Everyone knows it’s a fish. The entire Protection Network knows it’s a fish. They’re just too polite to tell him.”
His expression shifts. Horror. “Everyone? I need to have a conversation with Veren.”
“Later.” I prop myself up on his chest. Meet his eyes in the morning light. “I love you, Aslan Nexis. Even though I called you murder cat behind your back.”
“You called me murder cat to my face.”
“Also that.”
“And to your crystals. While you were alone. Thinking no one could hear.”
I wince. “Tiger hearing is really unfair.”
“You had an entire debate with a piece of rose quartz about whether my intensity was ‘sexy-scary’ or ‘scary-scary.’”
“In my defense—”
“You concluded it was both.”
“I stand by that assessment.”
He laughs. Full and real and warm, the sound filling the cabin and seeping into my bones. I’m mortified, yes. I’m also laughing with him. Because what else can I do?
We’re a mess. Both of us. Broken in different ways, scarred by different wounds, carrying enough baggage to fill a warehouse.
But we’re each other’s mess now.
And somehow, that makes everything okay.
“We should check on Shadow.” The thought surfaces through the warm haze of contentment. “He’s still at Anouk’s.”
Aslan’s arms tighten around me briefly, then release. “You’re right. And Caius will want a formal debrief about the Preservers. There’s cleanup to do. Interrogations to run.”
“The conspiracy probably didn’t just give up because we captured one group.”
“No.” His voice goes serious. “This was a victory, but it wasn’t the end. The Preservers are bigger than Iskra and her people. The Severing that she mentioned—there’s history there. Records. Things we need to understand.”
“Cheerful morning pillow talk.”
“I could go back to telling you how I heard every time you called me murder cat.”
“Conspiracy theories it is.” I sit up, letting the sheet fall around my waist. His eyes track the movement. Darken. “Hey. Focus.”
“I am focused.”
“On breakfast. And responsibilities. And not whatever that look on your face suggests.”
“That look suggests several things.” He reaches for me, pulls me back down, pins me beneath him with casual ease. “All of which we could explore before breakfast.”
“The world is burning.”
“The world burns whether we worry about it or not.” He kisses my throat. My collarbone. The claiming mark that pulses at his touch. “It can burn for another hour.”
I should argue. Should insist on duty and responsibility and all the adult things that come with being part of a town under magical siege.
Instead, I pull him closer.
The world can wait.
Two hours later—after breakfast and another shower and the discovery that Aslan’s kitchen counter is exactly the right height for certain activities—we finally leave the cabin.
The walk back to town is quiet. Comfortable. His hand finds mine without either of us deciding it should.
The morning air is cool and sharp with pine, the path damp underfoot where the mist has thinned overnight.
Pixies scatter from the path ahead of us, trailing sparkles.
A brownie waves from someone’s garden—actually waves, which means the gossip has definitely spread.
Great. The entire magical population of Mistvale probably knows we spent the night together.
Probably knows we did more than just sleep.
I think of Grandmother Peach saying the mist was particular about us, and find I believe it. Or maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe it’s just choosing someone and meaning it.
Either way, I’m not running anymore.
The claiming mark throbs gently against my shoulder. His presence pulses steady in my awareness—direction, distance, the unwavering certainty of where he is.
But underneath that, underneath the magic and the claiming and the ancient mysteries, there’s a simpler truth.
I love him.
He loves me.
And for the first time in two years, I believe that might be enough.
“You’re smiling.” His voice breaks through my thoughts. “What are you thinking?”
“That I’m glad you lurked outside my shop.”
“I didn’t lurk.”
“You absolutely lurked. But it was endearing lurking. Protective stalking.”
“There’s no such thing as endearing lurking or protective stalking.”
“There is now.” I squeeze his hand. “I’m retroactively deciding it was charming. Romantic, even. Very murder cat of you.”
He sighs. Long and suffering.
I grin.
This is going to be fun.