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LIORA

I t’s strange, the silence after a storm. Not the kind that comes from calm. The kind that buzzes with what now?

The rift is sealed. The earth is stitched—scorched, cracked, but still turning beneath our feet. The sky doesn’t bleed anymore. The Veil has settled.

But the world is watching. And I can feel their eyes like wind against my skin.

Not enemies anymore. Not exactly. But not allies either.

They look at me and see what Seraphiel nearly made me.

They look at Dante and see what he chose —me, every broken, cursed, blazing part of me.

They don’t speak it aloud. No one dares.

But I see it in the glances, the hesitations, the edge in their voices when they say my name like it might bite back.

Liora.

Balance-breaker. Starborn. The girl who nearly unraveled the world and then saved it.

The cursed. The unclaimed.

Until now.

It happens on the fourth day after the battle, when the realm councils call a gathering in the remnants of the old ruins, right where the Veil frayed open and nearly split the world in two.

The earth here still pulses faintly, magic buried deep in the roots, like it remembers.

Everyone already knows.

They’ve seen the way he looks at me—like I’m gravity and fire all wrapped in one. The way I find him in a room without even trying. How I ache for him even when we’re inches apart.

They watched him bleed for me.

They watched me burn the world to save him.

They know.

But knowing and naming are different things.

Especially here. Especially now.

To claim someone—especially a fae—isn’t just romantic.

It’s political.

It’s declaration.

A shifter claiming a dark fae? That’s the kind of thing that reshapes bloodlines and fractures alliances.

Because shifters don’t take mates lightly. And fae?

We don’t get claimed. We claim ourselves.

So when Dante steps forward in front of the council—before the witches who once threatened to bind me, before the vampires who debated using me as leverage, before the warlocks who keep their secrets like currency—and says with his whole damn chest:

“This woman… is mine.”

The air changes.

Magic stills.

Mara shifts her stance.

A vampire’s jaw tics.

Even the old fae in the back—one of the ones who hasn’t spoken since the first meeting—tilts his head with something like shock.

Because no one expected him to say it.

To claim me in front of gods and monsters and rulers.

To mean it.

But Dante’s not done.

He looks at me like I’m the only thing that matters. Not a weapon. Not a prophecy. Just… me.

“And I’m hers.”

His voice carries.

Not with force, but truth.

Absolute. Uncompromising. Final.

A ripple of unease threads through the onlookers, the kind that follows a tectonic shift—the slow realization that something just changed , even if they can’t quite name it yet.

Because by claiming me, Dante isn’t just declaring love.

He’s defying order.

Hierarchy.

Every unspoken rule that’s kept the powerful at bay from the too powerful.

I should say something soft.

Something measured.

But that’s not me.

I walk right up to him, grab his shirt, and pull him close until our foreheads brush and I can breathe in the promise he’s just made.

Then I say loud enough for everyone to hear:

“Damn right, you are.”

And I kiss him.

Not like the world’s watching.

Because it’s watching.

Because I want them to see what it looks like when power meets love and doesn’t break.

When it chooses to build instead.

When it says:

We don’t belong to your laws.

We don’t need your blessings.

We are our own storm.

And we are not afraid.

Later, as the sun dips behind the horizon and the witches etch new ward-lines along the ruins and the wolves begin their patrols again, I walk hand in hand with Dante through the edge of the woods, our steps easy, our breathing synced.

“I thought they’d try to stop us,” I say softly.

“They wanted to,” he murmurs. “But they knew they couldn’t.”

I squeeze his fingers. “They’re scared.”

“They should be.”

I glance up at him. “Are you?”

He stops. Turns. And cups my face like I’m something he’ll never get tired of holding.

“I’m not afraid of what you are,” he says. “Not anymore. Because it’s not a curse if you choose how to use it.”

“And you?”

His smile is slow, sure, a little wicked.

“I’ve always been a monster in the right light,” he says. “Now I’m yours.”

We’re watched.

We always will be.

But we’re no longer running.

We’re no longer hiding.

And maybe the world still fears us.

But the truth?

We don’t fear it back.