22. Stellan #2
I lean into her touch, letting myself feel the warmth of her palms against my cheeks. "If something goes wrong?—"
"Nothing's going wrong."
"But if it does. If I don't come back?—"
"Don't." Her voice catches. "Don't say that. You're coming back. You promised."
"I did. And I meant it." I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her, burying my face in her hair.
"But I need you to know, in case. That loving you has been the best thing that ever happened to me.
That you made me believe I could be more than the beast. That I would do it all again, every moment, even the worst parts, if it meant getting to hold you like this. "
She's crying now, silent tears soaking into my shirt. I hold her tighter, wishing I could promise her forever, knowing that I can't.
"In case we don't come back," she whispers against my chest. "Make tonight count."
"Esme—"
"I mean it." She pulls back to look at me, her eyes fierce despite the tears. "I don't want to spend tonight being careful. I don't want to think about tomorrow. I want you. All of you. The man and the beast. Everything you have to give."
The beast stirs, but not with hunger. With something deeper. Recognition. Claiming.
She's ours. She's asking us to claim her.
I kiss her. Not gently, not carefully, not the way I've been kissing her since the first time. This is something else. Something primal. Something that says mine with every brush of lips and slide of tongue.
She meets me there, matching my intensity, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. There's no hesitation in her. No fear of the beast that's rising up in my chest, settling into my bones. She knows what I am, and she wants all of it.
I lift her, her legs wrapping around my waist, and carry her to the bed. She pulls at my shirt, and I let her strip it away, let her run her hands over the scarred terrain of my chest while I work at the buttons of her blouse with hands that are shaking.
"Easy," she breathes, stilling my fingers. "We have time. Take your time."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You won't." She guides my hands, helps me with the buttons, reveals herself to me inch by inch. "You never have. You never will. The beast knows the difference between threat and treasure. I trust you both."
The beast believes her. More than that, the beast trusts her. This small, fierce, impossibly stubborn woman who reached for us when everyone else would have run. Who sees the monster and calls him beloved.
When I finally let go of the tight control I always keep, when I let myself feel the full depth of what I want, she doesn't flinch.
She arches into me.
What follows is different from the first time.
That was tender, reverent, full of wonder and fear.
This is claiming. Both of us marking each other, leaving evidence of this night on skin and soul.
Her nails rake down my back, and I leave the imprint of my hands on her hips.
She gasps my name, and I growl hers, and somewhere in the intensity, the beast and the man become one thing.
Whole. Integrated. Finally at peace.
There's no fear anymore. Not of the beast. Not of what I might become. Because she's there, holding on, refusing to let go, and the beast understands that protecting her is more important than any destruction. More important than any rage.
After, we lie tangled together in the darkness, her head on my chest, my hand tracing lazy patterns on her back. The night is deep around us, the few hours before dawn slipping away.
"I'll come back," I murmur against her hair, breathing in the scent of her one more time.
"I know." She traces my jaw with her fingertip, the touch feather-light but grounding. "Because I'll be in your ear the whole time. Calling you home through every moment of darkness."
"My anchor."
"Always." Her voice is fierce with conviction, a vow as unbreakable as any we might have spoken before gods.
I close my eyes and let myself feel this. The warmth of her body pressed against mine. The steady, rhythmic beat of her heart beneath my palm. The profound silence of the beast, content and still for the first time in fifteen long years of torment.
Tomorrow, the war ends one way or another. Tomorrow, I walk into battle knowing I'll have to let the monster loose completely, unleashing everything I've spent years trying to contain.
But tonight, I'm just a man holding the woman he loves with a desperate tenderness. And that's enough. That's everything that matters in this moment.
When dawn finally breaks through the windows and I have no choice but to leave her side, I press one last lingering kiss to her lips, trying to memorize the taste of her.
"Listen for me," I say, my voice rough. "In the dark, when the chaos surrounds you. I'll be listening for you too, holding onto the sound of your voice."
"I'll find you," she promises, her eyes blazing with determination. "However deep you go into that darkness. I'll find you and bring you back to yourself, to me."
I believe her with every fiber of my being.
And for the first time in my cursed life, I walk into battle not dreading what I'll inevitably become in the heat of violence, but trusting that I have something precious worth returning for.
The beast stirs with anticipation beneath my skin, ready and eager to do what needs to be done.
But underneath the familiar rage and hunger for destruction, there's something new taking root.
Something that feels almost like purpose, like meaning.
Protect them all. Destroy their enemies without mercy. Come home to her alive.
It's a simple equation, clean and clear. The kind of math even the beast can understand without confusion.