Lunaria
FORTY
She fell.
Her knees hit the stone floor of the pavilion, every ounce of energy drained, her body refusing to support her for another second. The orrery powered down, its living mechanism settling into peaceful dormancy. Deia’s ring cooled on her finger.
Arms caught her before she collapsed completely.
Hux. She could feel him—not just beside her but in her awareness, a presence anchored in her soul. Not telepathy, not emotion-sharing. Just the absolute certainty of where he was and the bone-deep knowledge that she belonged to him as completely as he belonged to her.
The curse was broken. Their bond was real.
“We did it.” Her voice came out as a croak, barely audible. “We actually—”
“You did it.” He was crying. She’d never seen him cry—not through all of this, not through learning about his family’s curse, not through the claiming. But now tears streamed down his face, cutting tracks through the blood and dirt. “You saved us. You saved everyone.”
“We saved each other.” She reached up, touching his face, feeling the dampness under her fingers. “That’s the whole point. That’s what they could never understand—we’re stronger when we choose each other than when fate chooses for us.”
He laughed. A sound rough with exhaustion and relief and joy she’d never heard from him.
“I love you,” he said. “I should have said it more. I’m going to say it constantly now. You’re going to get sick of hearing it.”
“Probably.” She grinned, too tired to pretend she wasn’t absolutely besotted. “Say it anyway.”
“I love you. I love you. I—”
She kissed him. Hard and fierce and triumphant, tasting salt from his tears and copper from blood and the sweet certainty of forever. Around them, Haven Shores was celebrating—wolves howling, lions roaring, dragons bugling, witches laughing and crying and hugging each other.
They’d won.
The Hollow King was destroyed. The curse was broken. And Lunaria Reed, who’d spent years running from attachment, had finally found a prize worth staying for.
The gardens settled into peaceful luminescence.
Morning light filtered through the cracked dome of the pavilion, turning the dew on the flowers to diamonds.
The void roses had turned red again—deep crimson, their black petals fading now that nothing tried to cross between realms. The warning bells fell silent.
The fate lilies glowed soft gold, no longer showing eclipsed destinies.
Junie found them still sitting on the pavilion floor, wrapped around each other, too exhausted to move.
“You’re alive.” She dropped to her knees beside them, chaos magic still crackling at her fingertips. “You’re alive and you broke the curse and you destroyed the void monster and I’m going to kill you for scaring me like that, Luna, I swear—”
“Later.” Lunaria managed a weak smile. “Kill me later. Right now I need to not move for approximately a century.”
“Deal.” Junie hugged her anyway, ignoring the protest. “I’m so proud of you. You stayed. You actually stayed.”
“Turns out running is exhausting.” Lunaria leaned into her cousin’s embrace, feeling Hux’s hand find hers and squeeze. “Much easier to just... stand still and fight for what you love.”
“It worked.” Narla’s voice held wonder. “The community bonds. I could feel them—everyone in Haven Shores, connected. It was...”
“Beautiful,” Avine finished softly. “It was beautiful.”
Sue Tidewell appeared at the edge of the pavilion, looking remarkably unruffled for someone who’d just survived a void entity invasion. Georgia Gentry stood beside her, tears still wet on her cheeks.
“Deia would have been proud.” Georgia’s voice cracked on the name. “Sixty years she’s been waiting for justice. You gave her that.”
“We all did.” Lunaria looked around at the assembled crowd—the couples who’d fought beside her, the community that had lent their bonds to save their town. “Every one of you.”
Sue’s smile was insufferably smug. “I told you she’d stay. I’m never wrong about these things.”
“You’re wrong about Delos’s dates,” someone muttered.
“Those were learning experiences,” Sue protested. “And speaking of Delos—”
But whatever she’d been about to say was cut off by the fire dragon himself landing heavily in the garden, shifting human before his feet hit the ground.
“We won?” He looked around at the destruction—trampled flowers, scorched earth, the general chaos of a battle recently concluded. “We actually won. Against a primordial void entity. I need a drink. Several drinks. Possibly an entire brewery.”
“Wolf Moon’s still standing,” Beck offered, arriving with Rosemary from the harbor. “First round’s on the house.”
A ragged cheer went up from the assembled crowd. Celebration could come later—there were wounded to tend, damage to repair, a community to reassure that the strange lights in the sky didn’t mean the world was ending.
But right now, this moment, there was just victory.
And love.
And home.
Lunaria didn’t move from the pavilion floor.
The others left gradually—to help the wounded, to assess the damage, to spread the word that Haven Shores had survived another impossible crisis. Junie was the last to go, extracting a promise that Lunaria would actually rest before attempting anything more strenuous than breathing.
Which left her and Hux alone in the heart of the gardens, surrounded by flowers that had witnessed a miracle.
“I can feel you.” His voice held wonder. “Really feel you. Not the flickering thing from before. You.”
She nodded, too tired for words. The bond was solid now—not the fragile flame it had been, but something steady and certain. She knew where he was without looking.
She laughed—a rough, tired sound that turned into something embarrassingly close to a sob.
“I’m going to plant things I won’t see bloom,” she said. “I’m going to sign a lease. I’m going to put pictures on walls and learn my neighbors’ names and just... stay.”
“Is that what you want?”
“It’s what I’ve always wanted.” She met his gaze, letting him see everything—the fear she’d hidden, the loneliness she’d pretended away, the desperate hope she’d never let herself acknowledge. “I just forgot how to admit it.”
He kissed her. Soft and sweet, nothing like the fierce claiming or the triumphant kiss in the aftermath of battle. Tender. Present. Just two people who’d found each other against impossible odds, choosing to stay.
When they came up for air, the sun was fully risen, streaming through the cracked dome of the pavilion, turning everything to gold.
“We should probably go,” Lunaria observed without moving.
“Probably.”
Neither of them did.