Page 84 of The Panther's Price

“This can’t be real.”

Lucien smiled, broken and raw. “It’s the only real thing I’ve got left.”

And her walls finally cracked.

She surged forward, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and kissed him like he was the last tether she had to herself.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t clean. It was desperate. Real.

A queen and her blade. A girl and her storm.

No thrones. No court.

Just them.

And the stars, still watching.

THIRTY-EIGHT

LUCIEN

She was trembling.

Not from fear. Not from weakness.

From the weight of everything they’d held back for too long.

Evryn pulled away from the kiss just enough to rest her forehead against his, her breath ghosting over his lips. Her hands stayed fisted in the fabric of his shirt like if she let go, she might shatter. Or run.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

He let the words settle into the cracks inside him like balm—raw and warm and healing in ways nothing else ever could be.

“I love you,” she repeated, softer this time, like a confession given in a cathedral. “And I’m terrified.”

Lucien’s hands rose, cradling her face gently, his thumbs brushing away the tears she hadn’t let fall until now.

“So am I,” he whispered. “But I’d rather be terrified with you than fearless alone.”

Her eyes fluttered shut. And when they opened again, something had changed. The walls weren’t just cracked now—they were gone.

She leaned into him fully.

And he caught her like he’d always been meant to.

Their mouths met again, this time slow, deep, searching. No longer a collision of desperation—but a surrender. A promise.

Lucien walked her back into the bloom-covered alcove beneath the stone archway, where moonlight pooled like silver water across old cobblestone. Vines brushed their shoulders, heavy with midnight blossoms.

The Veil shimmered faintly around them, not intruding—justwatching.

Evryn’s fingers moved to his belt. Slow. Deliberate.

Their hands moved with an urgency that spoke of a need long denied, each piece of clothing discarded a barrier torn down. Lucien's shirt, a whisper of fabric against his marble skin, fell to the moss-covered ground, revealing the lean, deadly contours of his chest and abdomen. Evryn's fingers, trembling with desire, fumbled with the clasp of her own garments, her violet eyes darkened to the color of twilight.

Lucien's breath hitched as Evryn's dress pooled at her feet, leaving her standing in the moon's glow, a vision of wild beauty with her dark auburn curls cascading over her honey-toned skin. His gaze traced the freckles that dusted her shoulders, a constellation he ached to map with his tongue. The chill of the night air did nothing to dampen the heat that flared between them, a fire stoked by the shadows that danced at the edge of the Veil's watchful gaze.

With a swift, fluid motion, Lucien divested himself of his remaining clothes, his movements a silent testament to the predator that lurked beneath his skin. The shadows seemed to cling to him, caressing his skin like old friends, as he stood before Evryn, a creature of the night in his element.

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