CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR #3
Emmery blinked. Blinked again. Shook her head in denial though all of this sat before her. “I didn’t know you had a garden,” she finally uttered.
The door clicked shut and Dez shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s private. I tend to it myself.” Emmery almost laughed as she imagined him down here caring for the garden, so mundane after all they’d been through.
As she walked into the garden, the flowers yawned open and bathed her in their sweet aroma. She crouched to graze a velvet petal and noted the smooth stems. A sad smile graced her mouth as she stood and faced Dez. “No thorns?”
“The irony isn’t missed.” He plucked a flower and extended it to her. “Whenever I come down to the garden—I feel you here.”
She blinked away the burn of tears as she took the noxcore.
“I feel you everywhere I go, Dez. I’m tired of pretending.
I’m tired of pretending I don't want you. I want you so damn badly, I might die if I don’t have you.
” She swallowed and gazed up at him. “Will you have me? Because I want all of you. I want the other half of this.” She held up her hand and flashed him the incomplete bond.
“I want to give you all those conditions. I want to be as wholly and completely yours as you are mine.” Months of emotion flooded her eyes.
“I’m not leaving. I’m not running. I’m here, Dez.
I’m here, and I want you. Forever.” Heart thrumming, she asked, “Do we have a deal?”
He opened his mouth to speak and a breathy sob burst from him.
Then he nodded. Nodded again.
He took her hand and spun her as he had that night at Thirst. His hand found the small of her back and he snatched her to him. She arched into his arms like a branch in the breeze swept toward the sea and the sun.
They danced, maybe in the way they would have had they met under normal circumstances. If they’d been at a ball and locked eyes across the room. If he’d bowed, and she’d curtsied, and they’d talked and laughed and had time to fall for each other in a way that wasn’t such complicated agony.
Their vestiges drew together like magnets, crimson bleeding into gold, honey melting into blood, and their magic thrummed through her, through them—together at long last.
Their world was ending and beginning, like giving into one another was a catastrophic miracle. This wouldn’t be a new chapter in their story. It would be a new book entirely.
His fingers skimmed from her temple to her jaw and tilted her chin up, as if he couldn’t believe she was in his arms, flesh and blood and real.
The anticipation was painful. The delicate moment swelled to a living, breathing thing with absolutely no self-control. For too long, she’d been knotted and cold and icy and hard, and he was untangling, warming, melting, and softening her.
Destonne’s nose skimmed hers in a teasing touch, a glimmer of the game they’d played all these months.
And maybe they’d both won.
His lips found hers, and Emmery surrendered.
Her soft contours pressed against his hard body.
His hand wove into her damp hair, while his other caressed her birthmark.
And they became one in a beautiful, dangerous act against the gods.
But if this was the cost, to let him paint her in his colours, be it black or crimson or a smattering of all, she would pay that price.
Maybe she’d been wrong when she thought her magic broke her down and remade her as his thorns had done to him.
Maybe Destonne had done that. He’d held all her messy parts with such tenderness that her shattered bits found solace.
Maybe she didn’t need to be healed to be loved, and they were always meant to heal together. In each other's arms.
As she stretched onto her toes and deepened the kiss, her soul left her body, reaching for him as it always did. The moan he exhaled against her lips echoed in her core, her heart—everywhere.
Then he picked her up by the backs of her thighs and carried her to the bench. As he sat her down and got on his knees, Emmery’s heart stopped.
“I wish I had a ribbon to tie on your fingers, but I’m a tad unprepared.” He twisted his mouth to the side, then tore a strip off his tunic. “Sa mi allette. Sa mia corra. Si meavi.”
Her eyes widened.
“Be my heart. My home,” he whispered, and took her hand. “Marry me.”
Everything faded away except the night breeze through the tent, and the thud of her rampant heartbeat. He gazed up at her as if he thought she would say no.
As if that was even in the realm of possibilities.
“Since you asked so nicely,” she managed, though her voice broke.
He smiled so brightly that his sunshine banished any memory of her prison of darkness.
Carefully, he wove the fabric between her three middle fingers, and tied it off best he could.
Wet warmth trailed her cheeks, and she hadn’t realized she was crying until he took her face in his hands and wiped the tears away.
“I want all of them,” she said softly. “Every way you can be mine.”
He cocked a brow. “All?”
“Whatever you’ll give me.”
Dez only gazed at her like a man glimpsing the shore after drifting lost at sea for a lifetime.