Chapter Forty-One #2
“I know you will not be with me, Teddy. I have made my peace with that.” Then she pauses, a breath shuddering from her chest. “But I love you, no matter what.”
I love you.
The words reach him in the place nothing else can. The part of him that died with Tali. But somehow, Seren reaches him there.
I love you.
He can hear the words she’s not saying: so I am choosing this moment for myself even if you can’t love me back.
But she’s wrong. So the words tumble from his lips. “No matter what. No matter where, Seren. I will love you across lifetimes.”
A breath snags in her throat. “Just not this life,” she whispers, and his heart breaks.
The words land like mourning instead of rejection.
No matter how he tries to leave Tali in the past, he can’t. He cannot break the vow. He cannot run into the fray. He cannot leave the fear of the boundary. Because then what does it mean about him? Who is he without the one thing he hasn’t failed: his vow?
Not this life.
The words spear through his chest.
So he says the only thing left to say. The only thing he can give her.
“What would you like to experience, Seren?” he asks, lips no longer able to resist blazing a trail across her skin. Hungry for her—body and soul.
She lets him, angling her face for better access.
“Pleasure,” she breathes. “If all we get is this one moment, bring me pleasure.”
Teddy stills at that—not because he doesn’t understand, but because he does. Too well. This isn’t impulse. This isn’t fleeting or careless. This is choice. And that makes it matter in a way that strips him bare.
His hand lifts slowly, deliberately, cupping her jaw as his thumb brushes beneath her cheekbone. He studies her like he’s trying to commit her to memory—not just the shape of her, but the certainty in her gaze, the steadiness she’s fought to earn, the clarity in the way she leans into him.
“Are you sure?” he asks quietly, not out of doubt, but reverence.
Seren doesn’t hesitate. She steps into him instead, her hands bracing against his chest, grounding herself against the solid, unyielding presence of him.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Something in him gives way at that. Not into chaos. Into intention.
He lowers his forehead to hers, breath mingling, the space between them collapsing into something quiet and sacred. “For this moment,” he murmurs, voice low and steady, “you get all of me.”
It isn’t a promise. It’s a boundary. And somehow, that makes it mean more.
Seren exhales like something inside her finally loosens. “Good,” she whispers. “Because after this, you get none of me.”
His chest tightens at the calm, clear promise. Because somehow, that hurts more than if she’d asked him to stay.
But a faint, almost disbelieving smile ghosts across his mouth. Gods, he loves her. The thought lands heavy and immovable in his chest, lodging there like an undying force—not fleeting, nothing he can outrun or out-strategize, but something that will follow him into every choice he makes from here.
Into every lifetime.
His hand slides to the back of her neck, anchoring her there as he finally swallows the distance between them.
His lips find hers, tender, soft, tentative. Like this is foreign for both of them. Not restraint breaking momentarily like they’ve had before, but a choice. A choice to let the truth win for once.
The kiss is not rushed. Not desperate. It unfolds slowly, deliberately, like he is learning her instead of taking her. Like this moment deserves to be witnessed, not consumed.
Seren meets him in it without hesitation—no fear, no confusion. Just want and desire and a woman making a choice for herself.
Her fingers curl into his shirt, holding him there just as firmly as he holds her, equal in every sense of the word.
There is no asking between them. No uncertainty.
Only the quiet, undeniable truth of what exists here, in this space, between these two people who have chosen this moment with open eyes.
The world beyond the room disappears. There is no war. No kingdoms. No gods waiting to reclaim their power. Only breath, warmth, the steady rhythm of two bodies finding something real in the midst of everything breaking around them.
He maps her like memory; like he knows he will have to carry her rather than keep her. And Seren—Seren takes what is hers. Not tentatively. Not fearfully. She lets herself feel it all without apology, without restraint, because for the first time in her life, no one is deciding this for her.
Her tongue sweeps in, demanding, claiming, hungry. Claiming the feast he’s owed her since the beginning.
Teddy breaks the kiss, his hands cupping her face like she’s the most sacred thing he’s ever held.
He takes one step back. And his hands find the hem of his tunic. He pulls it over his head, shucking it to the side.
His silver ring hangs from his neck on a chain, and for a heartbeat, Seren and Teddy stare at each other. A thousand words passing between them.
He moves to loop the chain over his head, to remove Tali from between them.
“Don’t,” Seren murmurs.
His hands still.
“You don’t have to erase the past for this to exist,” she says.
He nods, leaving the ring that burns against his chest like a reminder of the vow he can’t undo. Doesn’t even know if he wants to.
But he’s snapped from his thoughts by Seren’s hungry eyes, drinking him in.
She bites her bottom lip.
Those beautiful, perfect lips.
The self-control he’s spent decades mastering feels dangerously close to snapping apart around her.
Her honey-brown eyes rake over him, taking in every muscle he’s trained relentlessly, every inch of bare flesh he never thought he’d expose again.
She closes the gap between them, her fingers tracing the hard lines of his abdomen. Tracing up the valley that splits through the middle, until her hand splays across his honed chest.
“I’ve never done this, Teddy. But I don’t want to be treated like I’m breakable. I want you to show me what we could be… what we could have if things were different,” she murmurs softly, though there’s nothing but certainty in her voice.
His breath catches, his chest tightening as he takes her in—really takes her in.
“If you’re asking me for this…” his forehead brushes hers, breath warm against her lips, “I’m going to give it to you properly.”
A beat.
Her breath hitches.
“Not carefully. Not halfway.”
His gaze darkens, steady and certain.
“Exactly the way you deserve.”
Because she does deserve this. Deserves to be the only woman in the room, the only woman in his heart.
He stands tall, all six foot five inches of him towering over Seren’s small frame. He does not take his eyes off her, does not let the past take this moment.
He raises his hands, hooking a deft finger under the chain at his neck, and lifts it over his head.
Seren swallows thickly.
He drops the chain, eyes still firmly fixed on Seren.
Something between them shifts—unspoken but real.
Seren’s eyes soften. Not with hope, exactly. But gratitude or acknowledgement. Or just the aching relief of being chosen.
Teddy is a man of his word—there is nothing he takes more seriously. And he intends to honor Seren in every way he can.
She nods, like she understands the weight of what that means. The weight of removing his marriage ring for the first time in a decade.
She pulls her braid over her shoulder, untying the leather band from the ends, and dragging her fingers through the wild curls that fall in twists and whirls over her shoulders and back.
“Will you show me what I deserve, Teddy?” she asks, though it’s more like a challenge.
Teddy’s fingers drop to the buckles on her leather vest, working them loose with deft fingers.
“I would be honored,” he admits, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
The leather vest falls to the floor in a heavy thud.
He reaches for her tunic, and she raises her arms as if to say, I want this.
He pulls the tunic over her head slowly, her bare, delicate flesh unfurling in a gradual reveal.
Her breasts are bound, like the ancient female warriors, and that only makes him love her harder. Love her softer. To see who she’s become in the face of a broken world.
His hands move in hypnotic circles as they unbind the bandage from her chest, her arms raised patiently at her shoulders.
Her eyes settle on him, taking in every line, every edge, every movement like she’s committing him to memory, too.
The last loop of bandage falls from her chest.
Her breasts fall in perfect round swells, nipples peaked already. Teddy exhales like the sight physically wounds him.
His hand reaches out, cupping her cheek, trailing down her neck in a tender caress, and finding her breast.
His mouth finds her neck, lips and tongue lapping her up, drinking her in.
His hand works, massaging her breast, and she sighs reflexively.
A moan slips past his lips at the sound, and Seren drops her head back, a breathy pant escaping her. Her breath is relief and acceptance and resentment all at once. The sound of a woman making peace with what will never be.
Hearing her breathe like that sets him alight. His cock hardens instantly, straining against his linen pants. Need slams through him so hard it borders on violence.
His hands slow, not stopping—but grounding. Anchoring.
“Thank you for trusting me with this,” he says quietly. “With you.”
She leans into him, chest pressing firmly into his hand, desperate for his touch.
“I’ll remember this for the rest of my life,” he murmurs. “Not because of what it is… but because it’s you.”
She swallows, throat working against his mouth. Something snags in her throat—words, emotion, he’s not sure.
“Kiss me, Teddy,” she says despite herself.
So he gives her what she wants.
His mouth crashes into hers, more desperate now, hungrier.
Gods, she’s so beautiful.
One hand works her breast, the other holds the back of her neck, fingers tangled in the wild mess of her hair.
His tongue sweeps in, dancing with hers in a seductive wave of give and take.