79. Scarlett
Scarlett
T he dream clung to me. My father’s voice still echoing, low and certain. The stone circle. The blood on the trees.
I didn’t know what it meant.
Trace stirred behind me. A quiet sound in his chest. Alden’s fingers curled through mine.
I stayed between them, eyes open, chest tight.
They knew something. I could feel it in the silence. In the way they hadn’t let me go all night.
My chest rose and fell with theirs. My body ached in every place they’d worshipped. The low, even rhythm of their breathing was cathartic. I was pinned between them, wrapped in them, and if this was heaven, hell, or something worse—I didn’t care.
Trace’s hand was splayed across my ribs, warm and possessive, Alden’s fingers still tangled with mine like he wasn’t ready to let me go. Neither were.
We were a mess of limbs and heat, hearts still raw from whatever the hell last night was. And god, I still felt every inch of it. Of them.
It should’ve felt impossible—loving them like this. But it didn’t.
It felt inevitable.
Smiling, I closed my eyes, breathing them in. The scent of skin and sex and salt clung to the sheets, to me, lighting something dangerous and soft in my chest. A whisper I hadn’t let myself fully believe until now.
I loved them. Both of them.
Not with some storybook logic. Not with a clean ending or a perfect answer. I loved them with fire , with chaos. I loved Trace’s edge, the guilt and gravity he carried like a cross he refused to set down. I loved Alden’s steadiness, the quiet way he looked at me, as if I already belonged.
I pressed my cheek into Trace’s chest, my thumb brushing over Alden’s knuckles.
And my heart did that thing—it clenched and fluttered and asked the question I didn’t want to face. Can I really keep them both?
I didn’t know. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But I knew this—this moment—was mine.
Alden shifted behind me, arm pulling tighter around my waist. Trace mumbled something low and half-asleep, tucking me closer. And I just laid there, pinned between the only two men I’d ever let see the whole, unfiltered, un-fucking-pretty version of me.
And they still wanted me.
I traced a line across Alden’s wrist. Pressed my heel against traces shin. Little anchors. Quiet proof.
They’ve always been mine.
And I’d always been theirs—even when I was too afraid to choose.
Maybe I never could.
The knot in my chest loosened. Not gone. But quieter.
I didn’t know how this ended. Didn’t know what came next or how badly we’d break this if we tried to keep it.
But for right now?
I let it be simple.
I let myself be held.