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My heart, my soul. My queen.

“Callie,” I say, “I love you. I’ve loved you from the beginning. And I will love you long after the last star dies. I will love you until the end of darkness itself.”

“You love me,” she says, trying the words out.

“I love you, Callypso Lillis.” I love you. I love you. I love you.

It’s finally out there between us, that beautiful, brutal truth. And now all I want is to fall into her and never return. My sweet redemption.

For several seconds she takes me in, the only movement the rise and fall of her chest.

And then she smiles.

Ah, Gods! Who needs the sun when she smiles like that? She can make sadness forget it exists.

“Do you … want to be with me?” she asks.

She still doesn’t get it.

I pull her into me, staring down at those wide, hopeful eyes. “Callie, this may be oversharing, but I’m getting the sense that you want that at the moment …”

Her smile widens. “I do.”

So I tell her all those truths that should be so painfully obvious right now. Because I’m a sentimental fucker and she’s my mate.

“I want to wake up every morning to you, cherub, and I want to marry the shit out of you, and then I want to have lots and lots of babies with you. If, that is, you will have me.”

I want that future so badly and I want her to want it too.

Please want it, Callie. Please wantme.

She doesn’t speak, and one agonizing second gives way to the next.

“I’ll be yours, if you’ll be mine,” she finally says.

I feel my grin nearly split my face in two, and my wings flare wider than ever.

Take. Claim. Keep.

Nothing,nothing, feels as good as this moment.

This is what it’s like to be loved. Like the universe forming from chaos. It’s lighter than air and headier than magic. It’s everything.

“I’ll always be yours, cherub.” Even when she doesn’t want my crafty ass. I’ve nevernotbeen hers.

I cup her cheeks.

There’s a vow, an ancient vow, in my land, and as long as anyone can remember, lovers have whispered it under the stars. For seven years they’ve eaten away at me. Finally I set them free.

I search her eyes. “And mountains may rise and fall, and the sun might wither away, and the sea claim the land and swallow the sky. But you will always be mine. And the stars might fall from the heavens, and night might cloak the earth, but until darkness dies, I will always be yours.”

Chapter 24

The King of Claws and Talons

Less than a year ago

When I wakeup the next morning, Callie’s vanished—only, sirens don’t vanish. They glamour and beguile, but they don’t altogether disappear, particularly ones who’ve been magically bound to live under my roof.