Page 96 of After All The Wreckage

For a moment, there was a quiet where only the beat of our hearts could be heard.

“A complete swoosh,” she said, and I laughed softly.

I caressed her arm as her fingers slid along my chest and down my biceps. Her fingers settled on the words wrapped ivy-like around the sword inked onto my skin.

“What’s this quote from?” she asked, her voice low and sultry in a way that made me pulse inside her again. Her eyes found mine, a slow curl of her lips letting me know she’d felt it.

“Nothing,” I said.

Her eyes found mine. “You made it up?”

“It may have been inspired by a couple of things.”

“Such as?”

“The fairy tale the tavern is named after, for one.”

“I’ve never heard of a fairy tale with a Prince Darian.”

“It’s called the Light Princess. She’s born with this glow emitting from her.” I slid my hand over her collarbone, cupping her cheek. “Kind of like someone else I know.”

Rory rolled her eyes, and I continued. “The glow frightened her parents and the people of her land, so she was sent to live with a giantess in the mountains. When her parents finally called her back, it was because they were at war. They’d tried to invade the kingdom next door and had failed, and now their enemy was in their land, wreaking the same horrors on their people that they’d done to his. So, they offered her up as a trophy in an attempt to appease the enemy’s prince.

“At first, the princess refused to be handed over, but then the prince offered her a way out. Give him one kiss, and he’d forgive her parents their sins and leave her people in peace. She chose to protect those who’d never shown her any kindness, and that kiss cleansed the world. Her flame—her light—joined with his and burned the evil from both their kingdoms. She chose to be the hero in a world full of villains.”

Her hands stilled on my chest, and she swallowed. “That’s a pretty powerful story.”

I nodded. It was. A story that had been handed down in my family for generations, but no one was really sure of its origin.

“What else?” she asked.

“What else what?”

“What else inspired the tattoo?”

My gaze held hers. In that moment, the power of the universe overwhelmed me—the power of fate or magic or God—whatever you wanted to call it. Because somehow Rory and I had always been meant to end this way.

Souls joined.

Epic love filling us.

Did she feel it too?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Rory

I CAN SEE YOU

Performed by Taylor Swift

Tangledup with Gage in a way I’d always dreamed about but never thought would happen made my entire being rejoice. Tingles of pleasure coated every vein and synapse. What I’d felt when we’d been joined together… it had been… otherworldly. Like we’d stepped beyond the veil to some other existence.

Landing back in reality should have been painful, but instead, I was surrounded by his warmth, his scent, and his touch. It felt like… belonging. Like here and only here would I ever be truly safe and whole.

As he told me the story of the Light Princess, my heart seemed to grow. A girl who was forever on the outside choosing to stand up for those who’d banished her. It was Veronica. It was me.

And maybe that was the fourth time I truly fell for Gage Palmer.