Page 85 of Mane Squeeze
He cupped her face, breathing hard. “Lillith?”
Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’ve never felt so whole in my life.”
Dominic kissed each tear away, then the curve of her jaw, her lips, her throat.
They curled around each other under the slow warmth of cooling magic, skin still buzzing with the aftershock.
He brushed his thumb across the mark on her hip, reverently, then kissed it again.
“You’re mine.”
She nuzzled into his chest. “And you’re mine.”
No curses. No tethers.
Just soul-deep love, sealed in starlight and sex and blood.
38
DOMINIC
Lillith stood before the stone gates of the high fae court.
The loomed like the edge of the world—etched in runes that shimmered under moonlight, crowned with creeping vines that never dared wilt, silent and watching like they remembered every exile who’d walked away., breath shallow but spine straight.
“Still looks like a mausoleum,” she muttered, the corners of her mouth twitching bitterly.
But this time, she wasn’t alone.
Dominic stood beside his wife.
His fingers were laced with hers, warm and steady, anchoring her like he always did. She didn’t squeeze back, didn’t need to. Her silence told him she was holding together—barely. The kind of brave you only found when you had something to lose.
“You sure about this?” he asked, voice low, close to her ear.
“I need to be.” Her eyes stayed on the gate. “They summoned me. Because I called the Echoes. And they want answers.”
“They better be ready for the truth,” Dominic said, a rumble under his breath.
She smiled at that, faintly. “I’m not the scared girl who ran anymore.”
He didn’t say it, but she felt how proud he was. How furious, too, at everything this place had done to her. How he’d have burned it down if she asked.
The gates groaned open.
Two fae guards stepped aside and bowed. Not stiff formality. A deep, reverent bow, heads lowered as if she were royalty returned. Or myth come alive.
Dominic felt her still beside him. A moment of hesitation. Then she stepped forward.
The halls shimmered like they always had—arched ceilings rippling with starlight, magic humming under every footstep. But the air wasn’t cold this time. No disdain. Just silence. Awed. Anxious.
“Is it true?”
“She summoned them.”
“The Echoes answered her.”
“She’s the one who burned the prince.”
