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Then Rhett reaches for Malakai.

His fingers close around Malakai’s jaw and pulls him up into a kiss that tastes of all of us.

Me.

Ezra.

Them.

And there’s something different in this kiss.

Something beneath the hunger.

Two hundred thirty-five years.

Two hundred thirty-five years of wanting and resentment and guilt and loneliness. Of three men bound together by someone else’s choice, finally touching because they made one of their own.

The tenderness of it cracks something inside me wide open.

I sob.

And the field roars.

Not the Harvest.

The Earth.

The real fucking Earth.

The true Communion surges outward from us in a visible wave.

It tears across the field with enough force to knock the Witnesses backward. The old Brides scream as the energy rolls beneath them, and somewhere beyond the altar, the Harvest itself recoils.

Flowers erupt in a circle around us.

Corn rockets from the soil, climbing ten feet in seconds.

The dead, blackened ground darkens beneath our bodies, turning rich and damp and alive.

Not because something was taken.

Because something was freely given.

I collapse onto Rhett's chest, bound, filthy and perfect. I feel Malakai's hand stroke my hair, Ezra's lips press against my shoulder, Rhett's heart hammering beneath my ear.

"Holy shit," I whisper.

Rhett laughs, breathless. "Finally, a tradition I can support."

I slap his chest weakly. "You already made that joke."

"It bears repeating."

Malakai's chuckle vibrates through me. The rope around my wrists loosens, the Earth itself untying me. I bring my arms down, wrapping them around Rhett's neck, pulling all three closer. Ezra shifts, settling against Malakai's side, his hand tracing idle patterns on the Tiller's chest, and I watch them—watch the way Malakai leans into the touch, the way Ezra's thumb brushes his nipple, casual and possessive.

"Did it work?" Ezra asks, soft and broken but hopeful.

I look at the field, at the life exploding around us, at the Harvest shrinking back toward the tree line, its mouths silent for the first time in centuries. Then I look at them—my three, mine, touching each other with the same energy they touch me.