Page 116 of Stalked

Vane catches my hand as the crowd’s energy shifts from carnal to conversational. Bodies disentangle, couples reaching for discarded clothing or settling into post-coital embraces. The intensity has mellowed into something warmer, more social.

“Come with me.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, pulling me through a side door I hadn’t noticed before. The hallway beyond is quiet, lit by soft amber sconces. My legs shake slightly as I follow him, still unsteady from everything—the sex, the revelation, the rush of adrenaline.

He leads me into a small private room, shutting the door behind us. The space is intimate, furnished with a single velvet chaise and floor-to-ceiling mirrors that reflect back our disheveled state—his hair wild from my fingers, my body marked with his teeth and hands.

“Vane, what?—”

The words die when he drops to one knee.

My heart stops. Actually stops beating for a full second before it slams back to life with bruising force.

“I should’ve done this fifteen years ago.” His voice cracks slightly. “Should’ve begged you to stay instead of letting you run. Should’ve gotten on my knees and told you that you were everything I wanted, everything I needed.”

Tears blur my vision. “Vane?—”

“Let me finish, wildflower.” He pulls a ring from his pocket—an emerald surrounded by diamonds, catching the low light. “I’ve loved you since I was seventeen years old. Loved you through every year you were gone, loved you enough to bringyou back, loved you through your fear when you saw what I really am.”

His thumb brushes across my knuckles, his touch surprisingly gentle for hands that have done such violence.

“You’re carrying my child. You’ve given me everything I never thought I deserved.” His eyes glisten. “Marry me. Not because of the baby. Marry me because you’re the only person who’s ever seen all of me and stayed anyway.”

The tears spill over, tracking down my cheeks.

“Marry me because I’m yours just as much as you’re mine,” he continues, his voice rough with emotion. “Because these fifteen years without you were hell, and I never want to spend another day wondering if you’ll leave again.”

“Yes.” The word bursts from me. “Yes, God, yes.”

He slides the ring onto my finger, and I watch as the emerald catches the light—the same green as his eyes, the same green as the ropes he used to bind me, the same green I wore the night he first claimed me.

Everything comes full circle.

I pull him up and kiss him hard, tasting salt from both our tears. His arms wrap around me with that familiar possessiveness. Still, there’s tenderness too—a recognition that what we have goes beyond obsession into something deeper.

When we finally break apart, I press my forehead against his.

“I love you,” I whisper. “Every dark, twisted, beautiful part of you.”

“Good.” His smile turns wicked. “Because you’re stuck with me now.”

I laugh despite the tears still streaming down my face. “I think I’m done running.”

“You better be.” He cups my face, thumbs brushing away the wetness on my cheeks. “Because I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth if I have to.”

“I know you would.” And I do. That’s what makes this work—the certainty that he’ll never let me go, matched by my own realization that I don’t want him to.

I spent so long trying to escape what we were, afraid of disappointing everyone, afraid of loving someone who existed outside the boundaries of normal. But normal was never going to work for either of us.

We’re not a fairy tale. We’re something more complicated—built on pining and obsession, on surrender and dominance. But it’s ours, and it’s real, and it’s exactly what I need.