Page 92 of Legacy of Roses

She rounded the end of the hedge, and her eyes fell on Dimitri. She forgot all about Daphne at the sight of his unmoving body stretched out on the ground, his face gray.

She could see his still features clearly. His unnatural long hair was gone, and his original appearance had been restored. She was too late. She had been too slow. He was already dead.

“No!” She threw herself onto his unmoving chest.

She had tried so hard. It couldn’t all be for nothing. Dimitri couldn’t be gone from her life without even a farewell. He was too full of life to be felled like this.

“He isn’t dead!” Daphne’s hurried words penetrated the haze of her grief. “Not yet. He’s been holding on. Just.”

As if triggered by her words, Rosalie felt the subtle rise and fall of his chest. The breath was labored, but it had happened. He really was alive.

She sat up, feeling foolish. If he was still alive then she needed to act quickly. But as she stared down at him, she saw his features for the first time in weeks. Her breath caught as his face blurred, and she saw another in its place.

Jace.

She shuddered, but she couldn’t delay. No matter what tricks her mind was playing on her, she had to speak the words that would save Dimitri.

“Don’t die, Beast,” she croaked out, the words of her role tasting sour on her tongue. “I l…” She faltered. Pulling herself together, she tried again and got it out. “I love you.”

Nothing happened.

She looked in the direction of Daphne’s voice, desperate.

“I don’t think it’s enough to playact this part,” her friend said. “I think you have to mean it.”

Rosalie’s stomach clenched. She had meant it. She loved Dimitri.

She looked at him again, still seeing Jace’s face. She tried to shake away the effect, but while she had physically escaped from Jace, he still had poisonous hooks in her mind.

She trusted Dimitri, but she didn’t trust herself. What did she know of her own heart or the hearts of others? She thought she loved him, but what if her supposed love was as hollow as her love for Jace had been? Had the Legacy seen the truth and rejected her confession?

After everything they’d done, she wasn’t enough to save him. Pain tore through her middle. She had to try again.

But the words lodged in her throat. She had thrown off the shackles of being the merchant’s third daughter, but she was still weighed down by her own mistakes. How could she ever trust herself after getting it so badly wrong?

Dimitri’s eyes fluttered open, meeting hers. They were dull, their light almost extinguished, but they were also familiar. They were the eyes of both Beast Dimitri and regular Dimitri. He had looked at her with those eyes when he told her he loved her.

Staring into them, she no longer saw Jace or the reminder of her past weakness. The man in front of her wasn’t a stronger, more vibrant, more handsome version of Jace. He was just Dimitri. And her love for him was real. The Legacy was wrong.

Dimitri had helped her walk away from the burden of the Legacy without expecting anything in return. He hadn’t tricked or trapped her. He hadn’t taken anything from her at all. He had merely offered to help her. He had literally put his life on the line and lay dying as a result.

She didn’t love Dimitri because of the Legacy, as she had loved Jace. She loved him in spite of it. She and Dimitri had met in their dreams when she had never been able to meet Jace. And while she might have misjudged Jace, she had learned many hard lessons in the year since he’d left. She was stronger and wiser than she had been then.

Daphne had been right all along. From the moment Rosalie met Dimitri, she had been attracted to him, and she had judged him as a result. After the pain of Jace’s betrayal, she had acted just like the original merchant’s daughter. The historical daughter had been unable to see past the Beast’s form, forcing him to approach her in her dreams with his true face. Rosalie had been the opposite, only opening up to Dimitri when he gave up his true face and took the form of a Beast.

She gazed down at his strong features and allowed herself to feel the full force of the attraction she had been suppressing. She acknowledged that she loved him inside and out—his whole person. He didn’t have to become someone else for her.

This was what the Legacy had been testing. It was the reason it had restored his true face before her confession. It wanted to know that she could see beyond his appearance despite her past hurt. And finally she had passed. They had completed the story the Legacy insisted on foisting on them.

She cupped Dimitri’s face with both hands, watching as his eyes lit up in response.

“I love you,” she murmured, tears dropping from her eyes to run down his cheeks. “I love your brave, determined heart, your clever mind, your thoughtfulness, your natural skill with people—even your strong arms. I loved you as the Beast, but I love you even more as a man. Being around you makes my heart beat uncomfortably fast. It always has. I’m sorry I tried to close my eyes and my heart to you.”

The change was instantaneous. Even as she was speaking, his color returned, and the moment she spoke the final words, he surged upward. With one movement, he had her on his lap and his lips melded to hers.

She returned the embrace, and he wrapped her in his arms, cradling her close as he deepened the kiss. She closed her eyes and sank into it, kissing him back with an enthusiasm thatmatched her previous fear. His arms tightened around her in response, a low rumble sounding in his chest.

“I see we made it back in time,” a nauseated voice said from above them.

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