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Taly was panting, that hand still pressed to her chest. The tears were streaming freely down her cheeks as she stared at him from across theroom. He could once again see every one of those long months apart filling up the space between them, each one spent dwelling on her own mistakes. Trying to piece together an impossible situation.

She was waiting for him to respond, he realized. And though he tried, he couldn’t.

She loved him.

And just like that, his anger slipped away, leaving him dangling, hanging over the edge of a cliff.

She loved him. And how many crazy things had he done for that same reason? How many times had he endangered his own life for a chance at saving hers?

Not just a friend or a lover. Not just a partner or even a wife.

A bondmate. The person on the other end of that thread. Always with him. Always tugging him forward.

Taly was still waiting, shifting awkwardly as her eyes dropped to the floor. And since he still couldn’t find the words to say what he so desperatelyneededto say, he did the only thing he could think to do.

Crossing the room in a few, quick strides, he took her face in his hands—

And he kissed her.

She stiffened, and for one terrifying moment, he thought she might pull away—that he had overstepped or misunderstood.

But then she was kissing him back.

She was kissing him back with the same fierceness and longing that had been building inside him every day since Ebondrift. When he’dkissed her for the first and final time. When she’d told him goodbye.

He could hear the frantic beat of her heart, sense the shift in her scent. That thread—the bond—thrummed between them. Her mouth opened so easily to him, and at the first brush of her tongue—

Snarling softly, Taly pulled back and slammed a fist into his shoulder.

Skye immediately crumpled, not sure if it was pain or shock that had him staggering back a step. Maybe both. She hit way harder than she used to.

“What the hell was that for?” he sputtered.

“I’m still angry at you.” She sniffed back a fresh flood of tears, and her aether pulsed like fireflies in the space around her. “You’re an empty-headed jerk with absolutely no sense of self-preservation, and see if I ever do anything ever again to try to protect you.”

Skye began to laugh, ignoring her protests as he pulled her back into his arms. Her aether gave a violent flare, but he drank it in, letting his own magic spark against that bright veil of gold that rippled between them.

“I love you,” he whispered onto her lips. She immediately softened against him. “I aminlove with you, even though you are a stubborn” —a kiss, quick and brutal— “pig-headed” —then a harsh nip to her bottom lip— “brat.”

That earned him a slap on the chest.

Then another when he just laughed and kissed her. Again and again, until his lips were wet with her tears and he felt drunk off the taste of her. It had been a long, hard road, but she was finally back in his arms, finally back where she belonged.

Though there was still one final thing.

“Don’t do this again.” He had to force himself away. “Don’t run, don’t lie, don’t leave me behind. You don’t get to decide that my life is more valuable than yours. Even if you were human, that handful of decades would be worth everything to me.Youare worth everything to me. Understand?”

Taly nodded, closing her eyes as he kissed her brow. “I understand,” she said. “And I won’t. I’m done wasting my time trying to save someone who doesn’t have enough sense to save himself. You’re stuck with me now.”

Skye’s lips twitched. “Good.”

“For a lot longer than a few decades.”

“I already did the math,” he said, smiling softly into her hair. They would have forever now. The entirety of their immortal lives.

The world outside continued to rumble and growl. Ash pelted the glass.

From somewhere inside the apartment, a clock began to chime the hour.