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DANTE

T he bed’s cold when I wake up. And she’s not in it.

My eyes snap open, heart jackknifing in my chest, lungs locking up like I’ve just been dropped into deep water. I sit up too fast, pain blooming where bruises haven’t fully faded, but I barely feel it.

“Liora,” I breathe.

The room’s still dark, early-morning light bleeding pale through the blinds. My hands are already pushing back the sheets, ready to shift, to run to find her. .

I thought we were past this. I thought last night meant?—

Then I see her.

She’s curled up in the window seat, knees drawn to her chest, wrapped in a blanket that hangs off one shoulder. The moonlight catches her hair, spilling silver over obsidian strands. She looks ethereal. Haunted. Like something torn from a myth written in blood and starlight.

Relief hits me so hard I almost drop to my knees.

She didn’t run. She’s still here with me.

I exhale slowly, scrubbing a hand over my face, then rise and move toward her. Quiet. Slow. Like if I come on too fast, she’ll vanish into mist again.

She doesn’t look at me as I sit on the edge of the seat beside her. Her eyes are fixed out the window, watching the sky like it’s going to tear open.

Maybe it is.

“You always stare out like that?” I ask softly, voice gravel from sleep and worry. “Or is that just a fae thing?”

She huffs under her breath. Not quite a laugh. But close.

“I like knowing the sky’s still there,” she murmurs. “That it hasn’t cracked open yet.”

Yet.

That word makes my gut twist. She’s not wrong.

The Veil’s thin now. Thinner than I’ve ever felt it. Even the mundane world’s noticing—weather shifting without reason, people dreaming things they shouldn’t, magic bleeding into places it hasn’t touched in centuries. ANd them realizing that their nightmares are real, now just unicorns and shifters, but the things that go bump in the night.

And all of it is tied to her. To us.

I study her in the dim light—those runes tracing her arms like whispered threats and forgotten songs, the curl of her body against the glass, the way her shadows flicker faintly beneath the hem of the blanket, like they’re anxious too.

She’s beautiful in that terrifying, otherworldly way. Like a blade made of moonlight. Something too dangerous to touch but impossible to look away from.

“You thought I ran, didn’t you?” she asks suddenly, voice quiet.

I swallow. “Yeah.”

“I almost did.”

I nod. “I know.”

Silence stretches between us again.

Then she speaks, soft but steady. “The witches told me something the night I disappeared. What they’re preparing for.”

She turns to me now, and the look in her eyes?—

It’s pure grief. Like she’s already mourning something she hasn’t lost yet.

“Seraphiel isn’t just hunting me,” she says. “He’s preparing a ritual. A union rite. One older than the Veil itself.”

My blood runs cold.

“What kind of union?”

She looks down. Her hands tighten in the blanket.

“Full binding. Not just of souls or magic. But of realms. If he completes it—if he binds himself to me—he’ll break the last law holding him out of this world. The Veil will shatter and he will be able to claim my power, even what I don’t fully understand yet.”

My throat goes dry. “What happens after that?”

“The dead come back wrong. The sky doesn’t hold. Earth forgets time. Magic mutates. The realms bleed into each other and…” She trails off. Swallows hard. “There won’t be a human world anymore. No mortal boundary. No order. Just the underworld… rising. ”

I stare at her. And I see it now. Not just the fear. But the shame.

She’s carrying this like it’s her fault. Like the gods made her into a key and then left her to rust under everyone’s expectations.

And I swear to whatever’s left out there that I’m going to burn this world down before I let anyone claim her like that.

I take her chin in my hand, turning her to face me fully.

“Listen to me.”

Her eyes meet mine. Wide. Shining.

“I don’t give a fuck what ritual he thinks he can use. I don’t care how old the magic is. He doesn’t own you.”

“He thinks he does and that’s enough, Dante. Like I’ve said.”

“Let him think it. That doesn’t make it true. ”

Her lips tremble.

“I’m serious, Liora.” My voice goes low. Dark. “If he tries to take you—if he tries to touch you again—I’ll kill him.”

She stares at me, stunned silent.

And maybe she sees it now. The part of me that’s not just shifter. Not just a merc. The part of me that's deeper—older. Guardian-blood and wrath carved in bone.

“I don’t care what he is,” I say, softer now. “God. Fallen. King of rot. I will rip his wings off one by one and drag him back to the pit myself.”

Her eyes brim. And when she speaks, it’s barely a whisper.

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

Her breath catches. “You’re not supposed to say that. What if he can hear it? He’s everywhere. You can’t hide from him, I can’t–”

“Screw what we’re supposed to do and screw him. I’m not scared of the dark. Just of losing you.”

I reach for her hand. She lets me take it. And I feel it, right there in the air—between her pulse and mine.

This isn’t fate. This is choice. And I choose her.

Again and again and again.