Page 43

Grim crossed the room to his desk, opened a low drawer, and pulled out a small box wrapped in worn red velvet. Kneeling before me, he opened it. Inside, nestled against the velvet, was a single charm: small, intricate, shining.

"Happy birthday, Astoria. I know I once wished you'd never celebrate another... but that was my own selfishness speaking."

His fingers trembled slightly as he reached for the necklace tucked safely between my breasts.

"I don't want your firsts," he said, the words agonized. "I want your lasts. Your last kiss, your last laugh, your last life… your last breath.”

My breath hitched as his skin brushed mine, he took the charm, holding it to the gentle stream of light from the lamp in the corner. A star was engraved on the front, the top and bottom points reaching toward the edge. A small diamond rested at the center.

His eyes found mine as he added the charm to my necklace, resting beside the hour glass—beside his sigil.

“You’ve tortured me for over a century. Stealing my attention. Harboring my time and duty. My thoughts, my existence… my love.”

Tears once again pricked at my eyes. “You love me?”

“Have I not made that completely obvious?”

My hands wrung nervously in my lap, my focus falling to them.

Grim’s fingers slid under my chin, coaxing my gaze back to his. "I love you, Astoria Devlin Tempest," he said, his voice roughened by something vast and uncontainable. "With everything I am, and for all I wish I was. I am not good, nor will I ever be, but I cannot resist you any longer."

Tears burned the corners of my eyes as I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him down to me. “I love you, Grim," I spoke fiercely. "My soul’s tainted just the same. You do not—this does not scare me."

"It should," he admitted, the words barely audible over the wild beating of my heart. His nose brushed mine, and then I caught his lips with my own. Sealing our pledge, with a heart-searing kiss.

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Our kisses grew frantic, drowning in the rush of something vast and inevitable.

We were a cocoon of fevered touches and ragged breath, all the longing and tension of a century tearing loose at once.

Grim’s hand hovered at the hem of my shirt—tentative, reverent.

He pressed a kiss into the crook of my neck, murmuring praise against my skin.

I bent into him, desperate to be closer, to carve this feeling into bone.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted my shirt over my arms and head. His torn shirt followed, then our pants, left forgotten in a trail across the floor.

I set my trembling hand against my racing heart. Grim's hand covered mine, steadying it, steadying me , his fingers grazing the curve of my bare breast in a touch so reverent it made me shudder.

Our eyes locked—dark to bright, mirror to mirror—and in that endless moment, I saw all the questions he didn’t ask reflected back at me. The point of no return. We were here, on the precipice we had hurtled toward for a hundred years.

"The point of no return, my Star," Grim spoke into my mind, his voice deep and resonant. "Could you spend an eternity in darkness?"

The curse, the warnings—they were like moth-eaten banners, shredded and irrelevant. Nothing mattered compared to the weight of his touch. I felt as if I had been set on fire from the inside, my veins lit with a new and dazzling joy. I had never known love like this. Never known need like this.

"Your darkness has always felt like my light," I confessed, my voice breaking apart between us.

With that, Grim’s restraint crumbled. His body clashed against mine, covering me, enveloping me.

I had once thought we were oil and water—two forces forever opposed. Now I knew we were something else entirely. We were fire and tide. Destruction and renewal. Under the right conditions, we could either extinguish or exalt each other.

Grim pressed deeper, his weight a solid, anchoring comfort, as if trying to mold our very souls together.

He kissed the hollow of my throat, my collarbone—worship in every trembling brush of his lips.

My legs wrapped around his waist, anchoring him to me as he moved with a slow, deliberate rhythm.

Unhurried but sure, as if memorizing every part of me with each stroke.

It was a dance we'd spent a century learning without ever truly touching. And now, at last, we moved together without grief or hesitation. Each breath, each caress peeled away the old hurts. Melted the fear from my bones. Sluiced the weight of my endless years from my spirit.

Every pain.

Every loss.

Every broken promise made in the name of love and light, washed away in the tide of this .

Here, in this bed, in his arms. My own shadows rose to meet his, twining together until we were indistinguishable.

One darkness. One light. One heart.

Grim's gravelly voice was barely more than a sigh against my ear.

His soft lips trailed along my heated skin, his breath a wave of tenderness.

"Forever is a long time," he breathed, voice cracking on the edges of the words.

"Yet it would never be enough. Happy one hundred and forty-seventh birthday, my love.”