Page 173 of Claiming Pretty

A tear wobbled on her chin, glinting like crystal in the morning sun.

“My shadow. My Scáth,” she whispered, her voice a broken thread of sound.

“I love you,” I said, the words agony to speak, but I couldn’t leave her without saying them.

Of all the daggers I had plunged into myself—this was the one that twisted deepest.

And I’ll always love you—from the shadows. These were the words I felt, the truth I held in my chest, but I left them unsaid.

Ava was too overcome with emotion to reply, her mouth opening and closing as if every word failed her.

“It’s okay,” I murmured.

I knew what it felt like to be choked by the inadequacyof language. To find words incapable of carrying the weight of love, of sorrow, of goodbye.

If I’d found the right words sooner… perhaps. But no. I couldn’t drown in what-ifs. Not yet. Not until she was gone.

“Promise me,” I said, my voice steady even as my heart cracked. “Promise me you’ll look after him for me.”

“Right,” she said, laughing weakly through her tears but failing to hide the emotion in her voice.

We shared a quiet moment then, a rare and precious understanding passing between us without the need for words.

“I promise,” she whispered at last.

I nodded, more to myself than her. It was time to let go. Time to set her free and walk into the darkness that awaited me.

“Go,” I said, nodding toward the tomb, my voice barely above a whisper.

Ava hesitated, glancing back at me with wide, tear-filled eyes.

She took a step closer instead, pressing up onto her tiptoes to kiss me one last time. Her lips were soft, cool against my bruised mouth, like a balm and a blade all at once.

When she stepped back, her hands clutched desperately at her chest, and I clenched my fists behind my back to keep from reaching for her.

“I love you, Ciaran,” she said, her voice breaking.

I closed my eyes, unable to speak.

Instead, I mouthed the only words I could.I know.

And then she turned and walked away, leaving me in the shadows as she stepped into the light.

If I cared more about preserving what little was left of my heart, I would have turned away too. Spared myself the agony of watching her disappear, step by step, into a world where I could no longer follow.

But I was selfish. I stole one last moment, one last image of her, burning it into my memory with the kind of desperation of a man who knows he’s losing everything.

I stood rooted there, dying a little more with every footfall, with every sway of her dark hair in the sunlight.

Searing it into my mind, the way the morning kissed her skin, the lightness of her steps, the way her shoulders squared as she hurried toward Ty, toward her future.

This was the vision that would haunt me, the one that would rise unbidden every night when sleep refused to come. The memory I would clutch to my chest like a lifeline and a curse.

And even though she was walking away, leaving me to the shadows, I knew she meant it.

She loved me, but shebelongedto Ty.

TY

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