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I kissed her again, deeper this time, heat building between us. The kind of heat that made distance inconvenient and furniture negotiable. I felt the smile curve against my mouth before I saw it.

She knew exactly what I was thinking.

“I’m a lucky man,” I murmured against her throat.

She smiled. “I’m luckier than you are.”

We kissed again, and my hand slid to the hem of her T-shirt.

To hell with the couch.

The dining room table had always worked just fine.

Chapter Thirty-One

I closed the front door with my heel and leaned back against it for a second, the box heavy in my arms.

I knew exactly what was inside.

That knowledge made my chest feel too full, like I’d swallowed something warm and bright and it didn’t quite fit yet.

Author copies.

The final volume of Oracle’s Silence.

Five books. Five years. Five different versions of myself poured into ink and paper and stubborn hope.

I carried the box into the dining room and set it on the table, my fingers trembling just a little as I sliced the tape. The cardboard flaps fell open, and there they were—clean spines, crisp covers, the solid weight of something finished.

I lifted one out and took it into the living room, settling onto the couch like this was a ceremony instead of a victory lap.

I started at the beginning.

I didn’t make it far.

“Fuck this,” I muttered, already flipping pages.

I went straight to the back.

There they were.

The last three pages.

The culmination of everything Seris and Kael had survived—ruined cities, lies whispered by prophets, choices that cost them everything except each other. They stood together in the final panels not because the world had been fixed, but because they had been.

They didn’t get the life anyone else expected.

They didn’t get a clean, shiny version of happiness.

They got their happiness.

Earned. Chosen. Quietly fierce.

Love without conditions. A future that didn’t have to look like anyone else’s to be real.

My throat tightened.

I knew my fans were going to be split right down the middle. Some would scream for more—more battles, more danger, more proof that suffering equaled worth. I’d left the door open just enough for future adventures if they wanted them. But they weren’t going to get them from me. This was where I chose to stop writing their story—and let them live on.