Chapter 138

GRAYSON

“What about a garden wedding in honor of your mom?”

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If the moon goddess ever asks me for my favorite moment in this lifetime, I think I’m going to tell her about this one. Right here. Jessica’s laying on top of me, all bone and warmth and habit, barefoot and too serious, making suggestions about our wedding like it isn’t the most holy thing I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth.

Well, not exactly suggestions. More like commands, whispered against my collarbone like they’re secrets she’s still afraid to speak loud.

“Not too many people,” she murmurs, her lips moving against my throat as she talks. “No stupid speeches. No throne chairs. And no omega–binding rituals. I want it soft. Just us.”

Just us.

Just us.

I hold her tighter like that’ll keep it real.

The bed of the truck is lined with one of my jackets after she took it off. Crickets are singing somewhere near the trees. Above us, the sky cracked wide with stars. Moonlight spills down her back like a second skin.

She shifts, rests her chin on my chest so we’re face to face, moonlight pooling in her lashes. She’s studying me like she’s memorizing the shape of my face. Or the sound of my heart. Or the color of what we’ll lose.

“Would you really do it?” she asks. “A garden wedding?”

“I’d marry you in a landfill if you asked,” I say, smiling like it doesn’t ache. “But yeah. Garden sounds nice. You’d look like spring.”

“Gross.”

“I mean it.”

“You’re gross.”

She hides her smile against my ribs, arms winding tight around me like she wants to burrow inside and stay. I let my hand wander through her hair.

“Promise me something,” she says, voice so soft I almost miss it.

“Anything”

“If something happens–if things go bad–I want you to remember this. I love you.”

I don’t say anything right away. I just look at her. Her eyes, her mouth, the starlight strung across her

9:35 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 138

cheekbones like freckles. Every piece of her is already a memory and we’re not even gone yet.

“Jess,” I whisper, and my throat goes tight around it. “You don’t have to-”

“I want to.”

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brushes her fingers down my chest like she’s writing her name into me. Like she’s marking the place she’ll haunt when she’s

you,” she says again, firmer this time. “And I need

Gods.

if the world

I decided I’m going to keep her forever. We just did it, and I’m so sure she’s still tired and aching but I don’t think

My girl.

My Jessica.

My omega and luna.

My everything.

to always love her, choose

“Grayson!”

“Grayson!”

what it finds, and my chest seizes

I’m on my knees.

I don’t remember falling.

Something’s burning.

No, everything’s burning!

scream at him to shut the fuck up, because he’s pulling me out of her, pulling me out of our moment, and I was still holding her in that bed of my chest, I was still hearing her whisper, “Just

But she’s not here.

And I am.

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Chapter 138

:

smells like flame and

I gag on it.

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whole spine punches back up through my shoulders, and I lurch forward like something’s

yanking,

my eyes snapped through the woods

village is turning into ashes and the sky is all red. Every roof we ever kissed under, every den where cubs were born, every wooden promise passed from mouth to mouth like hope gone, black,

look at

But I can’t.

pitch that means survival, but I’m still

of my shirt, yanking me up onto feet that don’t feel like mine, “you burn now, you burn

scorched glass, shoulders hunched against emberfall like he’s dragging me through hell and won’t let me stop, “there’s a

I rasp, spitting

know. He’s not here.

Me.

This fire.

This fucking ruin.

His gift.

but I shove it back down–there’s no time, no time, not if I want

need my truck,” I growl, low, feral, eyes stinging but

hit the field-”

hot, and the forest screams behind

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Chapter 138

don’t care about saving the

I care about her.

Pierce pants, voice hoarse, “if she’s

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