Page 70 of Magic Claimed
I could barely breathe. “Then what if…”
“If we don’t find an antidote in time, I don’t know how much longer I’ll last.”
I didn’t accept that. I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. “Then we’ll find it. That’s all. Because I’m not going to lose you.”
He pulled back, but only to take my face between his hands and look into my eyes. And while there was no glow of magic glimmering from those amber depths, there was a different kind of intensity—one that made its own kind of magic and punched my heart with the feelings I read there.
“No matter what happens, Raine, you need to know that I love you.”
Tears. There was no way to stop them. No way to halt the flood of emotions that felt like they carved a path clear through my heart and left a gaping wound behind.
“And if you’ll let me spend every minute of whatever time I have left beside you? That will be enough.”
I gripped his wrists and hung on. Maybe he couldn’t feel our bond, but I could still make him understand how I felt. “It won’t be enough forme, Callum. It won’t ever be enough. I only just found you. Only just let myself believe it was okay to be happy. So I’m not giving up on you now, and you don’t get to give up either.”
“You think I’m giving up?” He shook his head, a lopsided smile tugging at his lips even as his own eyes grew red andglimmered with emotion. “Never. But I’m done pretending that anything in my life is more important than you. If the shapeshifters want to get rid of me, let them try. If the fae want to set their whole court on fire, I don’t care. And if anyone questions my choice of a mate, they can take their objections and shove them…”
I clapped a hand over his mouth. “Language! If you’re spending the rest of your life with me, you should know there’s an impressionable six-year-old who’s almost always listening.”
He laughed silently and grasped my wrist, pressed a featherlight kiss to my fingers, then slowly lowered my hand…
But only so he could finally kiss me properly. With all the aching desperation of a man who’d realized that every kiss could be our last.
His lips met mine fiercely, his hands tangling in my hair, our bodies pressed together as if we could somehow truly blend into one person. And through our bond… I could feel everything. Hunger, desperation, longing, despair, happiness, and the faintest thread of hope.
This kiss was everything that tied us together, and where I had once feared the idea of someone being able to feel my emotions, now it broke me to realize that Callum was cut off from our bond. That he would never know what this kiss meant to me. Never know what I was thinking and feeling in this moment, when it seemed as if everything was falling apart around us.
Everything except our commitment to each other and to our families. Everything except the people we loved, who would look into this darkness beside us and never, ever flinch.
So even here—even in a moment when the future seemed bleak—it was never truly hopeless. There were too many people fighting for us and with us. Too many who held us up and would never let us fall.
“You and me,” I said against his lips. “For however long we have. Let’s make it count.”
His forehead rested against mine, and he nodded. “And let’s find whatever happiness we can. No dwelling on the possibilities. Let’s just live. Enjoy the time we have together. And see if we can save the world while we’re at it.”
“No pressure,” I murmured.
He laughed, and the sound rumbled through my chest, filling me with warmth and a renewed sense of hope.
“I hope you know, Callum-ro-Deverin… With or without your magic, there’s no one I would rather have at my back or standing beside me. To the end of the world, to the post office, the grocery store, or an afternoon in the park—it’s just you.”
He grinned and kissed me again. “Once we’ve saved the world, we’ll have to give parks and post offices a try. First date, maybe?”
It was my turn to laugh at the absolute backwardness of our history together. “Sounds like a plan.”
Now all we had to do was survive, unravel Blake’s plotting, find an antidote, prevent a war, and come home safely.
It was a lot, but so was everything we’d overcome to get this far.
And if I could somehow manage to raise a six-year-old teleporter and a teenage elemental without tearing my hair out or running away to Antarctica?
Heck, I could do anything.
SEVENTEEN
I don’t knowthat anyone slept much that night. We ended up with Kes and the kids in one apartment and Shane and Ethan in another, while I slept on Callum’s couch. I wasn’t ready to be more than a few steps away, just in case something happened and his condition worsened unexpectedly.
Angelica and Ryker showed up the next morning, bursting in while Callum and I were barefoot in the kitchen, sipping coffee with my back against his chest and his arm around my waist—a single moment of quiet and contentment that only made me want more.
