Page 143 of Labyrinthine
And my curse.
“I don’t want it,” I whisper, tears slipping free.
He slides out of me slowly, gathers me into his arms, and cradles me like I might break again.
“You won’t lose yourself,” he murmurs. “I have you. I’m not letting go. This…we…are exactly what we’re meant to be.”
And then I feel it.
Not a thought. Not a whisper.
A rush?—
Crashing through me like sunlight on water, a tide of emotion too pure to belong to anyone else but him. Joy floods my veins—warm as dusk light on skin, soft as temple silk. It carries awe.
It carries peace.
It carries love.
It hits so hard that it steals my breath.
“Mallen…”
His smile is a secret I almost missed. He brushes his thumb along my cheekbone, and he’s there—the warmth of his skin, the stutter of his breath, the echo of his pulse where it meets mine, and the entirety of his soul.
“Now you understand,” he murmurs. “This is us, Azhara. We’re one. There will never be a moment, not ever again, when you are alone.”
I blink back the tears that rise too fast to stop. “Did you know this would happen?”
“No,” he says, and I know he’s telling the truth. “I knew I carried your darkness. I thought that was what I’d do.” He draws in a long breath, as if steadying himself beneath the weight of it. “But this…I didn’t know I’d feel you. All of you. That you’d feel me. That we’d share not just what we are, but how we are.”
He pauses, searching for the words, and a quiet tension—not fear, but the ache of a truth too intimate to speak aloud—shivers through me.
“I hold your magic inside me. Some part of your soul too, I think. Not just the dark. All of it. Life and death. Light and shadow. I don’t know how to wield it yet, but it’s here. And I think…I think it always will be. It won’t spill like that again—not unless we break. That moment was a door—and we passed through it. What remains is fused. Contained. Ours.”
I shift onto his chest and press my ear to the steady rhythm of his heart. Mallen is fierce and wild and ruthless, but this part of him is quieter. Truer. I know it now, the depth of his stillness, the peace he’s rarely allowed himself.
He’s safe here. With me.
He brings my knuckles to his lips, kisses them like a vow.
“There’s no escape now. For either of us.”
I don’t want one.
Our fingers thread together as the bond hums between us—alive, radiant, and so full it’s almost too much to bear. More than love or magic. It’s a promise we’ve carried since the beginning.
His happiness flows through me again, and I understand the shape of it. He’s not just content. He’s whole. I gave him everything he feared he’d never have. And in return, he gives me choice. I’m chosen, and that—that—was what I wanted.
I breathe into his chest and speak the words against the rhythm of his heart.
“I love you.”
He closes his eyes and pulls me tighter.
“I heard you,” he whispers back. “And I love you too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
