Page 139 of Lavender and Honey

"I want it to be just us," he says, pulling me from my thoughts. "Not with any outsiders around." His gaze went over to my parents and then back to me.

"Just us," I say, and there is an almost unbearable lightness in the words.

He touches my cheek, making sure that I see him. Making sure that I know this is real. "Just us," he says. It's more than I hoped for. More than I ever thought possible.

It’s everything.

I'm so full of relief, and joy that I almost don't hear the warnings in the back of my mind. The warnings I spent so long letting get in the way. They'll come for you, they said. They'll tear it all down, all of it, before you can even get used to it. You'll regret this when they finally win.

But they can't win now. They can't.

I made this choice.

"Lydia," Lucian says, the word a promise all its own. "We'll figure it all out. No one's changing anything." He glances past me, to my parents, to the life I almost convinced myself I could survive. "They're not part of this. Not unless we want them to be."

"You think you know what love is," my mother says, voice cutting into the moment Lucian and myself were having. I can hear the rising panic in her voice.

"Wait until this little honeymoon is over." She steps forward like she might shake some sense into me. Lucian lets out a low warning sound and pulls me behind him, a wall they can’t get through.

"She's made her choice," he says, voice sharp, a deep growl in his chest rising in volume as a warning, "Now get out."

They can’t believe it. They’re in shock. They look at me and then at each other, unable to accept that I've really said these things. I hear the urgency in their voices, the frantic desire to control me again. They need to make me take it all back, take back every word and retreat to a place where I can be safe, and quiet, and unseen.

My father stands next to my mother, their combined disappointment aimed like a weapon. "This isn't a game, Lydia.This isn't something you can just play around with and change your mind about later."

"Why do you think I'm here?" I say, a challenge in every syllable.

"Because you thought this would be your big moment," my mother says. "A chance to show us that you're a grown woman now." The words are sharp with sarcasm and fear. "It isn't too late to—"

"It is," I say. I almost laugh at the confusion on their faces. "It's way too late. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"This isn’t going to last," my father says. "We've seen how these things end. You haven't."

Lucian's arm is a line drawn in the sand. "You don't know anything about this," he says. "She knows exactly what she's doing."

Their voices rise, desperate, insisting. I'm being reckless, they're only trying to protect me, they love me. I feel the last word hit, the pressure of it, the weight, the guilt. But they are too late. I won't let it work, not now.

"Lydia," my mother says. Her voice is shrill, breaking. "Do you really think this will be different? Do you really think he won't, this pack—"

"Yes," I say. I know that one word will do more damage than anything else I could say. I know it's the only thing they’ll remember when they finally give up and leave. "Yes, I do."

It's too much for them. I see them stagger back, the air leaving their chests in one heavy breath. Their panic grows more wild, more frantic. They can't control this. They can't control me.

Lucian glances over his shoulder. His eyes are calm and certain, letting me know it's going to be okay, letting me know I've won. "She's a part of our pack," he says. "You can't change it."

His confidence fills me. It is a presence in itself, a soft and solid truth they can't fight against.

"She thinks she's in love now," my father says, grasping for anything that might break through. "Just wait. She’ll be right back with us when she sees what you're really like."

They're saying these things to hurt him, to make him react, to make him think he has to prove them wrong. They don't know that he's stronger than that. That he's sure of this, sure of me, sure of us. More sure than he ever could be of anything else.

"I will wear his mark," I say, the words hitting their mark with a satisfying force. "No matter what you do." It's not Lucian they look at now, not Lucian they're trying to damage with their last frantic efforts. It's me. Me, the daughter who used to do anything they wanted, who used to say anything they needed to hear.

My mother tries to step forward again, but Lucian shifts, closing the space she wants to fill with more guilt, more pleading, more lies. I see their desperation for what it is: a fear that I've finally broken free.

"You’ll regret this, Lydia," my father says, his voice a sad, cloying weight.

Lucian gives them a hard, steady look. "She has made her choice… now…Get out."

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