Page 89 of Knot the Last Chapter

So I wait.

She finds a detail etched in the leather of an old mystery with “thorn" in the title—an inscription, barely legible. I help her clean it with a dry cloth, revealing the phrase carved in Latin:Finis coronat opus.

She reads it aloud. “‘The end crowns the work.’”

I swallow. “It’s a motto. It’s been in the family for generations. I’ve heard him utter it a few times. But… maybe it’s also a clue. I hadn’t thought of that.”

We look at each other again. That moment hums with something unspoken, warm and magnetic.

“This is closer than I’ve ever come to actually solving this thing,” I answer, my voice hoarse.

She blinks, caught in it for a heartbeat longer, before she rises with a stretch, the shirt riding up slightly over her thigh. My gaze follows—hungry, reverent.

“Thanks for letting me help,” she says softly. “This was… fun.”

“You helped more than you know.”

She hesitates. Then: “If you ever need a Watson, I’m happy to help.”

“I will always need you,” I said hoarsely, seeing the flush on her cheeks. “I want to do more than solve mysteries with you, Lila. I want to write a whole new life with you.”

Chapter fifty-two

Lila

Corwyn’s words fan my heat at my core and I stand at still as a stack of books. Corwyn is standing too close to me.

His scent—amber spice and something deeper, feral—wraps around me like a second skin. It seeps into my bloodstream, making everything in me heat and ache.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t mean to put any pressure. It’s just how I feel.”

He's trying not to crowd me. But it doesn't matter.

I am already crowded. My body still burns with the lingering heat Rhys and Tyler couldn’t quite extinguish. I’m raw at the edges, too aware of every brush of air, of every inhale. And Corwyn? Corwyn is too controlled, too calm—and it's unraveling me.

“You’re flushed,” he says gently. “You still in heat?”

His voice is rougher than usual. It’s a strain, that effort to stay civil, composed.

I nod, slow and measured, but the grin that follows isn't innocent.

“I could use some help getting rid of what’s left.”

His pupils dilate instantly. There’s a crack in that carefully tailored composure, and my heart thrills with it. The scholar, the alpha with endless patience, is staring at me like he wants to consume me whole.

But he doesn’t move—yet.

“Are you sure?” he asks, voice deep and reverent.

I take a step closer. “I’m sure. I want you, Corwyn. I’ve wanted you.”

Something in him snaps.

His hands are on me in the next breath—one gripping my waist, the other tangling in my hair as he kisses me with a force I hadn’t expected. It’s wild. Starved. And I match it with every ounce of heat in my blood.

He walks me back until my shoulder blades hit the library’s wooden paneling. The old wall creaks with the impact, and something inside me thrills at the thought of being taken here—surrounded by the scent of ancient ink, shadowed firelight flickering along the rows of shelves.

“You drive me mad,” he mutters against my neck. “Every time you talk mysteries, every time you touch a page like it’s sacred, I want to put my mark on you.”

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