Page 86 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
We end up on the floor, covered in paint and each other, laughing into each other’s mouths like the world didn’t almost end.
And for a little while, it feels like it didn’t.
The Collector’s gone. The veil has sealed. The relic’s dust.
The town doesn’t love us, but they’ve stopped fearing us.
And Mira—Mira's here. Often. Eating our food. Yelling at crows. Teaching Sienna enchantments Ireallydon’t want her to know.
The past still clings to us, sure. But it doesn’t own us.
Not anymore.
The sun’sjust cracking the horizon when I step barefoot into the sand.
The tide’s pulled back, the sea slick and shimmering like molten glass. My breath fogs in the chill, but it doesn’t bother me. Not anymore. My lungs ache with the cold and the salt, and for once, I’m grateful for the sting.
This stretch of beach used to hold me like a noose—pulling tight around my ribs, reminding me of everything I’d lost. Now it feels like something else.
A promise, maybe.
I walk the shoreline slow, toes sinking into wet sand, gulls screaming overhead like they’ve got gossip to spill. The wind tangles in my hair and pulls at my sleeves, and I let it. I let the world move around me, through me.
Not as a ghost. Not as something cursed or bound or forgotten.
Just as me.
Just as a man in love—with the storm-tongued girl sleeping in our half-built house, who saved me from the wreck I became.
And every morning, I walk this beach to remind myself…
This is real.
This isours.
CHAPTER 30
SIENNA
The salt air sticks to my skin as waves collapse around our ankles. Elias’ thumb traces the scar on my hipbone—the one he kissed raw hours ago in our half-painted bedroom. Moonlight fractures across his collarbones, and when he speaks, his voice is frayed velvet.
“You’re shivering.”
“Cold’s got nothing to do with it.”
His laugh unravels me. I bite the hinge of his jaw, hands sliding under his soaked shirt. The fabric tears without resistance; I’ve gotten good at ruining his clothes. His heartbeat thrums against my tongue as I lick a path to his nipple.
“Fuck, Sienna?—”
“You’re not talking your way out of this.”
He hooks a hand behind my knee, dragging me higher against him. The ocean surges, waist-deep now, and his grip tightens as a wave nearly topples us. My back hits the submerged sandbar, saltwater stinging my eyes. He looms over me, hair dripping, eyes dark as monsoon clouds.
“Tell me,” he rasps, fingers working the button of my jeans. “Tell me you want this.”
I arch, letting the next wave lift me into his palm as he peels the denim down. “Wasted three lifetimes not wanting you. Hurry up.”
His cock presses hot against my inner thigh. I clamp my legs around his hips, nails scoring his shoulders as he rocks into my pussy—slow, deliberate, a blade sheathed to the hilt. The ocean stills, holding its breath.
