Page 241 of Maksym

Instinct guided me. My tongue moved over the wounds, sealing them. The marks closed beneath my mouth, though I kissed the place after, unwilling to let it vanish too quickly.

Strength left me in one sweet, devastating wave.

I collapsed against his chest.

Maksym’s arms closed around me at once. His body remained inside mine, softening slowly, the evidence of him still warm between my thighs. I pressed my mouth to his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, not quite kisses, not quite prayers.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

His hand slid over my back.

I pressed my face to his neck, where my bite had been.

“Thank you for saving me.”

Epilogue

Taras

Four months after Philadelphia, my brother’s palace had begun to behave like a living thing with a pulse of its own.

From the balcony, I watched a footman hurry across the marble floor carrying a bolt of deep purple fabric in both arms. The cloth trailed behind him in a rich, dark river, catching at the bronze feet of a temporary floral stand before another servant lifted it clear without missing her place in the sequence of orders being passed from hand to hand.

Two vampires balanced on ladders beneath the largest chandelier, adjusting the fall of crystal with the grave concentration of surgeons. One held the iron frame steady while the other corrected the angle by a fraction of an inch. A human eye would not have noticed the difference. Half the vampires in court would. Worse, Grace would, and she would say nothing while knowing, which was a more devastating form of judgment.

White and gold floral arrangements were being positioned along the ceremonial aisle. Tall branches, pale roses, gold-threaded leaves, sprays of flowers I did not know by name and had no intention of learning unless the failure to know became operationally relevant. They framed the cream carpet leading toward the dais where Maksym would stand before the assembled sovereigns and noble houses and make public what had already been true in every meaningful way.

Grace would be crowned. Grace would marry him.

Those two facts had been living inside the palace for weeks, altering the air.

Beside me, Shadrick Devers leaned against the stone railing with his forearms braced on the carved edge. Shad had one shoulder lowered in his habitual imitation of relaxation, though I had known him too long to believe in it fully. His suit was dark, perfectly cut, and quiet in the way expensive things were quiet when they had no interest in pleading their value to the room. He watched the activity below with an expression I had seen on soldiers after battle when they first realized the city they protected had lights on again.

Somewhere between disbelief and wonder.

“That,” he said after a long silence, “is not a day I ever thought I’d see.”

His voice carried low, deep, dry around the edges. He did not waste words. It was one of the reasons I tolerated him for longer than five minutes at a time.

I looked down at the aisle where the gold accents caught the light. “Which part? The florists surviving Lucia’s revision notes, or my brother allowing six hundred guests into a room with open sight lines to his mate?”

Shad’s mouth twitched. “Both are miracles. But I meant this.” He lifted his chin toward the hall. “A coronation and a wedding. For him. For her. After everything.” His eyes moved over the staff, the ladders, the flowers, the fabric. “The Goddess doesn’t do anything by half-measures.”

“No,” I said. “She prefers ambush.”

Shad turned his head toward me.

I kept my arms folded, one shoulder against the pillar behind me. I had chosen the balcony because it gave me three exits, a clean view of the hall, and enough distance from the floral discussions to preserve what remained of my patience. Also, because from here I could look at the palace and understand, in one glance, how much had changed while pretending I was only assessing security.

My brother’s kingdom had been altered by a woman who had arrived starving at its door.

Not conquered. Not disrupted. Altered. There was a difference.

Grace had not tried to soften Maksym’s court. She had done something more dangerous. She had made it more precise. Safe houses now operated in four states under structures so cleanly built even our father had called the legal organization impressive, which from Kazimir was practically a hymn. Funds seized from Lucian Devereaux had been redirected with ruthless efficiency. Survivors had choices in writing, protections in law, and resources that did not depend on anyone’s sentiment.

Grace had also begun reviewing old human-interface protocols across the western territories. She had found thirteen weaknesses in the first week. By the second, Maksym had stopped looking offended when she marked his systems in red ink and began smiling at the margins like a man courting execution by annotation.

It had been grotesque. It had also been good for him.