I walk toward the man who changed my whole life. The man who completed me. I walk toward the rest of my forever. Because that’s what we have now. Yesterday, I watched him die. I held his cool, still form. But he’s a miracle, and I’m a miracle. And now we’re about to bond into one for the rest of forever.
I’m fucking beaming by the time I reach Ares, and he just might have swallowed the sun today, because the man is luminous.
I take his hands and just look at him for a few moments.
I love him with every fiber of my being.
And now I get to vow it in front of everyone who matters.
There is no officiant. We don’t need one. No one else has the authority to define what this is between us.
Ares squeezes my hands, never once breaking eye contact.
“Lana,” he begins, his voice already rough with emotion. But he’s also calm. So confident. “We started as a lie. An arrangement. A performance. But from the moment you looked me in the eye—unafraid, furious, fucking radiant—I knew I’d never be able to pretend with you. Not really. Not when everything in me screamedmine.” The word comes out as an emotional whisper. It snags something inside me. It catches in my chest. I blink furiously, making sure the tears gathered in my eyes do not fall.
“I’ve lived just long enough to know that forever isn’t a promise. But with you, forever sounds too short. I would stretch time until it broke just to love you longer.”
Ares stares into my eyes, and I swear there is some kind of alchemical magic going on right now. I feel his words all the way into my soul, stitching us together, binding us in a physical way.
“Lana, I vow to protect your fire. To honor your darkness. To worship your strength.
“You have brought me to my knees in the most sacred way. You are not just my heart. You are my home. You are my beginning and my end.
“And whatever comes after—this life, the next—I will find you there, and love you all over again.”
I swallow the tears in my throat. This man.Thisman. How am I ever,evergoing to top the perfect vows he’s just spoken?
“Ares, you were supposed to be a means to an end. What we agreed to in the beginning… We were both crazy. I never expected the vampire I was supposed to fake a future with… would become the man I couldn’t imagine surviving without.” Emotion cracks my voice as I remember what it was like in thosefew moments after James staked him. I couldn’t see past it. I couldn’t see a future without him.
“Ares, loving you has broken me apart and rebuilt me into someone I never dared to be—whole, wild, strong. You saw every jagged, guarded piece of me and didn’t flinch.”
He squeezes my hands, brushing a thumb over the back of one of them. He’s so steady, just as he’s been the entire time I’ve known him. Here, holding his hands, I feel so grounded, like nothing could ever shake us.
It will take more than death to rip us apart. We’ve already proven that.
“I don’t care how long we live—ten years or a thousand. It still wouldn’t be enough time to love you the way you deserve,” I continue. “But I’ll spend every breath trying.”
Ares smiles down at me, strength and devotion radiating from the man who has become the center of my whole universe.
“I vow to never flinch from your shadows. To match your ferocity with my own. To choose you again and again—no matter the odds, no matter the war, no matter how many times the world tries to tear us apart.
“You are not just the man I love. You are the pulse in my veins. The fire in my blood.
“And I will love you—through eternity, through ashes, through every impossible tomorrow.”
Ares pulls two small objects from his pocket. He takes my left hand and slides a beautiful, simple band to join the ring I’ve worn since the beginning.
“I do,” he says, his voice rough with conviction as he stares into my eyes.
I take the other ring from his hand and reach for his left hand. The band is thick and black, simple and solid. I stare into his eyes as I slide it onto his ring finger. “I do,” I vow.
Then his hand is at my waist, and I’m rising on my toes, and we’re kissing like we’ve waited a hundred years for this moment. Like it’s oxygen. Like it’s war and peace and forever all rolled into one.
The room explodes in cheers.
Clementine cries with a smile. Sysco whoops and yells, “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Juliet mutters, “Hot damn,” and fans herself.
