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I ’ve never seen so much blood in one place.

Once upon a time, the sight of all this blood would have made me pass out. I couldn’t have handled it. But slowly, Ares seemed to heal that. And when I became a vampire? I think that took care of the rest.

But blood is thick in the air. It soaks the floor. Clings to my skin. The tang of it coats the back of my throat as we move slowly through what’s left of the resurrection stage, as if moving any faster would bring it all crashing down again.

Juliet is wiping her face with a cloth that might have once been white but is now saturated in streaks of red and black. She looks like hell. Like we all do.

The bones of the Blood Father—what’s left of them—lie in a heap.

“That’s the last one,” Sysco says, hauling what’s left of James’ brother onto a tarp.

Juliet crosses the floor, careful of the blood pools, and glances down at the body. “We cremate them. All of them.”

Roman wipes blood off his jaw, his shirt soaked through. “Then we scatter the ashes.”

Juliet nods. “That’s what we did with Archer King. No bones. No trace. No way back.”

I don’t know who the hell Archer King is, but I get the willies just from the way Juliet says his name.

Ares’ gaze darkens. “Agreed.”

We gather the remains. Five bodies. James, his two brothers, Markus, and whatever’s left of the Blood Father. Sysco makes a few quick calls, quiet and efficient. He’s got a guy. No questions asked. Doesn’t ask who the bodies are. Doesn’t want to know. Just says he can do it.

We load them into tarps and tape off the ends and cracks so no more blood can escape.

The van Sysco arranges is old and beat-up, the kind that looks like it belongs to a band that never made it.

We drive in silence to a facility on the edge of the city—a place with no name, no real address.

Just a man with dead eyes and a roaring furnace.

Juliet stands beside me as Roman and Sysco dump one of the brothers into the flames. I watch as Ares grabs the bag with the Blood Father’s bones and then drops them into the fire as well.

“I didn’t even really know who that was until a few days ago,” I say as I wrap my arms around my middle. “And he could have ended the world as we know it.”

“Cyrus tried to make the world forget his son,” Juliet says as she stares into the flames. “Too bad immortals have long memories. I wonder if he will ever realize his son’s bones aren’t in Roter Himmel anymore?”

I don’t have an answer to that, so I don’t say anything.

It takes hours to burn every one of these bodies down to ash. I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am, when we have to wait half the night before it’s done. But eventually, it is. We collect every bit of the ash and bag it, and then we drive to the Hudson.

Morning is teasing the horizon, fog curling off the water, the skyline behind us an eerie silhouette of the city we just saved. One by one, we tear open the bags, and dump them into the dark water. The current dissolves them in seconds. Gone.

Forever, I hope.

When it’s done, we stand there for a long moment, staring into the water.

Juliet breaks the silence. “I don’t know about you all, but I need a fucking shower and a week of sleep.”

“Same,” Sysco mutters.

Roman runs a hand through his hair, blood drying under his nails. “We regroup after sunset.”

Everyone agrees. One by one, we drift apart into the city.

But Ares reaches for my hand, lacing his fingers with mine.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

We head for home.

The penthouse is quiet. Still.

After seeing so much carnage, it almost seems impossible that it hasn’t spread throughout the entire world. The walls here are so clean. The floor untouched by blood. The only sound is the faint hum of the refrigerator.

I walk into the living room and just stand there. What are we supposed to do with our lives now? How… how do we just have a normal day after everything that just transpired?

Ares walks up and wraps his arms around my waist. And it’s the most natural thing in the world when I loop my hands behind his neck, but it’s something that I will never, ever take for granted.

“I still can’t believe it,” I whisper.

“I know,” he says, his voice rough.

“I watched you die,” I say, and my words crack as emotions try to strangle me. “I felt it. You dropped to your knees, and I… I couldn’t breathe.”

He pulls me tighter against him, and I lean into the strength of his body, into the heat of his skin. He’s alive. Warm. Breathing.

“I thought it was over,” I admit, my voice cracking. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m here,” he says softly. “Thanks to Juliet.”

I look up into his eyes. “I don’t want to waste any more time.”

His brows pull together. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I say, pressing a hand to his chest, right over the place the stake pierced him, “I want to marry you. Tomorrow. I want to be yours, officially. Permanently. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

His breath catches.

Then he growls—a deep, rough sound that vibrates through me. His hands frame my face.

“Say it again.”

“I want to marry you,” I whisper.

His mouth crashes into mine, all teeth and fire and devotion. It’s not gentle. It’s everything. His lips bruise mine, his hands grip my body like he’s trying to mold me to him. I kiss him back just as fiercely, matching his desperation.

He lifts me without breaking the kiss, carrying me down the hall. My back hits the bed as he tips us onto it. His hands roam down my thighs, spreading them, anchoring me around his waist.

“I love you,” he says, his voice ragged against my throat.

“I love you more,” I whisper, clinging to him.

He tears my shirt, and I gasp, arching into him. His mouth traces fire down my neck, his hands reverent and hungry.

I claw at his bloodied and torn clothes. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t clean. Violence happened today. Death was all around us. But none of that matters.

Because I still get to touch him. I still get to feel him breathing.

We make love like we’ve been starved of each other—like the world could burn outside, and we wouldn’t care.

It’s not careful. It’s not slow.

It’s the kind of love that rebuilds.

That claims.

That marks this as a new beginning.

When it’s over, we collapse into each other, limbs tangled, breath shared.

Ares brushes hair from my face, his eyes burning with something ancient and infinite. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” I whisper.