Page 135 of Haunted

“Never.” I tilt my head to look at him. “I thought Iwas giving up everything, but really, I was finally becoming who I was meant to be.”

He searches my face, still looking for doubt even after twelve months of my complete surrender. It’s one of the things I love most about him—beneath all that calculating control lies a man terrified of losing what matters most.

“I was dead before you,” he confesses, his voice rough with emotion. “Going through the motions of living but feeling nothing. You brought me back to life, Mira.”

My heart clenches at the vulnerability in his admission. This is Xavier stripped of all masks, all pretense. Just a man who found salvation in the most unlikely place.

“Then we saved each other,” I murmur, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw. “Two broken people who fit together perfectly.”

His hand cups my face, thumb stroking across my cheekbone. “Twenty-four hours isn’t nearly enough time with you.”

I smile, settling more fully against his chest. “Good thing we have forever.”

A year ago, the word would have terrified me—forever bound to a man who rules Ravenwood’s underworld. Now, it feels like the only truth that matters.

The woman who walked into this maze as an investigative journalist, Mira Sullivan, is truly dead—and I’ve never felt more alive.