Page 208 of The Ember that Tethers

If I have to watch you love someone else, none of it matters!

Do you know the lengths I would go to if I were him? I would do anything. I would be anything you needed. I would be your friend. Your confidant. Your strength. Your heart. Your soul. Your love.

I could care for you better with my hands tied behind my back, struck deaf and blind. I know you, Emmery. I hear you without words. I see you without looking. Everything in me recognizes you and would in any life.

Don’t you know I would love you so well if you let me?

“Because you love me, Dez. I know you do, even if you couldn’t say it. Even if you think it’s not enough.” She blinked and said the words her heart called with each beat. “Molh havan za vania. Una brelle aspretto.Senta el mio.”

Her world swam until he took her face in his hands, tethering her to this earth. He rested his forehead against hers and breathed her in, leaned into this delicate moment full of promise and awe and, gods, that washope. It was lovely and delectable and so overdue. And with Dez, it was within reach.

“I want to show you something,” he murmured. “I think you may like it.”

She nodded, and her lips curled in a half smile.

He led her by the hand to the ornamental-looking door adjacent to his bed and held it open for her. They descended the winding stairs to another door below. His fingers lingered on the handle, like his best kept secret hid behind the slab of wood. When he finally turned the knob, and the door creaked open, her heart lodged in her throat.

Ahead stretched a small garden tented by thick white fabric. Overhead, gaps of night sky peeked through, and moonlight bathed the single ornate wooden bench decorating the space.

But it wasn’t the garden that stole her breath.

It was what filled it.

Noxcore. Hundreds of them, all in a symphony of that deep plum.

Emmery blinked. Blinked again. Shook her head in denial though all of this sat before her. “I didn’t know you had a garden,” she finally uttered.

The door clicked shut and Dez shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s private. I tend to it myself.” Emmery almost laughed as she imagined him down here caring for the garden, so mundane after all they’d been through.

As she walked into the garden, the flowers yawned open and bathed her in their sweet aroma. She crouched to graze a velvet petal and noted the smooth stems. A sad smile graced her mouth as she stood and faced Dez. “No thorns?”

“The irony isn’t missed.” He plucked a flower and extended it to her. “Whenever I come down to the garden—I feel you here.”

She blinked away the burn of tears as she took the noxcore. “I feel you everywhere I go, Dez. I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of pretending I don't want you. I want you so damn badly, I might die if I don’t have you.” She swallowed and gazed up at him. “Will you have me? Because I want all of you. I want the other half of this.” She held up her hand and flashed him the incomplete bond. “I want to give you all those conditions. I want to be as wholly and completely yours as you are mine.” Months of emotion flooded her eyes. “I’m not leaving. I’m not running. I’m here, Dez. I’m here, and I want you. Forever.” Heart thrumming, she asked, “Do we have a deal?”

He opened his mouth to speak and a breathy sob burst from him.

Then he nodded. Nodded again.

He took her hand and spun her as he had that night at Thirst. His hand found the small of her back and he snatched her to him. She arched into his arms like a branch in the breeze swept toward the sea and the sun.

They danced, maybe in the way they would have had they met under normal circumstances. If they’d been at a ball and locked eyes across the room. If he’d bowed, and she’d curtsied, and they’d talked and laughed and had time to fall for each other in a way that wasn’t such complicated agony.

Their vestiges drew together like magnets, crimson bleeding into gold, honey melting into blood, and their magic thrummed through her, throughthem—together at long last.

Their world was ending and beginning, like giving into one another was a catastrophic miracle. This wouldn’t be a new chapter in their story. It would be a new book entirely.

His fingers skimmed from her temple to her jaw and tilted her chin up, as if he couldn’t believe she was in his arms, flesh and blood andreal.

The anticipation was painful. The delicate moment swelled to a living, breathing thing with absolutely no self-control. For too long, she’d been knotted and cold and icy and hard, and he was untangling, warming, melting, and softening her.

Destonne’s nose skimmed hers in a teasing touch, a glimmer of the game they’d played all these months.

And maybe they’d both won.

His lips found hers, and Emmery surrendered. Her soft contours pressed against his hard body. His hand wove into her damp hair, while his other caressed her birthmark. And they became one in a beautiful, dangerous act against the gods. But if this was the cost, to let him paint her in his colours, be it black or crimson or a smattering of all, she would pay that price.

Maybe she’d been wrong when she thought her magic broke her down and remade her as his thorns had done to him. Maybe Destonne had done that. He’d held all her messy parts with such tenderness that her shattered bits found solace. Maybe she didn’t need to be healed to be loved, and they were always meant to heal together. In each other's arms.