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I shake my head slowly. Ewan’s eyes narrow and he opens his mouth to speak, but I silence him with a finger against his lips.

“I’ll move in with you,” I say, agreeing to the first part of his dictatorial request with absolutely no hesitation. Fuck it. His place is incredible, and the idea of spending another night without him feels pretty damn intolerable. “But I’m not going back to the Bureau.”

Again, he looks like he’s going to say something, but I keep my finger where it is, even when he nips it in frustration.

“Let me figure it out?” I ask him, and he nods.

“Whatever you need, and whatever you want to do, I’m here to support you.”

More than pleased with that answer, I lean up to press a kiss against his lips before nestling into his neck.

“So…” I say with an unbearable lightness bubbling up in my chest. “What do we do now?”

44

Blair

“What do we do now?”

I’ve never known it was possible to be so broken and so whole at the same time.

But standing here with my mate in my arms—having marked and claimed her and bound her to me for the rest of our lives—both things are true at the same time. My soul feels as if it’s been shattered like glass, scattered across the surrounding plains, but also like my mate has picked up every last piece and put me back together.

I’m still cracked, still fragile, but with Kenna pressed against me, I’ve never known the depth of peace and certainty coursing through me.

I also can’t stop the wide, embarrassing grin that breaks across my face. “Now? Now you’re with me, ember. And now we figure it out.”

It’s exhilarating, and terrifying, and wonderful. Everything all at the same time.

“Now I make it up to you, just like I promised.” I lean in to run my lips over my claiming mark again, and the breathy moan she lets out sends flames racing through my veins. “I’m going to spend the rest of my damned life doing everything I can to make you happy, Kenna.”

She sighs and relaxes into me, and a few more of those cracks fuse themselves back together.

“All of this is insane, isn’t it? Like, actually insane.”

I chuckle against her hair. “Perhaps. But I still wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Really?”

“Well,” I allow. “If I could change anything, I might go back and pull my head out of my ass a little sooner, but… yes, really.”

“How soon?” she teases. “That very first day at the Bureau?”

“If I’d acted on instinct that first day at the Bureau, my tenure as Director would have come to an even more abrupt end than it did.”

Kenna laughs. “Oh yeah? What would that instinct have made you do?”

My own laugh is deeper, darker, a promise and a warning all wrapped up in one. “I would have claimed you right then and there. Carried you off somewhere I could hoard you and be greedy with you, ember.”

The shiver that runs through Kenna has nothing to do with the temperature, and the answering surge of arousal in my blood reminds me where we are right now. Out in the middle of nowhere, under the clear blue sky, with the summer sun beating down on our backs.

Kenna must have the same thought, because when she leans up to murmur in my ear, her voice is husky and thick with desire.

“So, do you have somewhere around here you can hoard me? Where are you staying?”

Laughing again, I grasp her ass and lift her up against me. I kiss the gasp off her full lips and groan at the warm press of her thighs on my hips, her plush body tucked against mine.

“I’ve been… roughing it a little.”