Page 189 of Buried in Blood
Because the war’s over.
And for once, I didn’t lose.
56
Evelyn
Dante’s breathing is slower now.
Deep. Even. Safe.
I lie beside him, my cheek pressed against his bare chest, counting the rise and fall like it means something.
It does.
Because for so long, I thought I’d never hear it again.
I thought the world would take him from me the way it takes everything good—through fire, through violence, through silence that stretches like a wound no one can close.
But he’s still here.
And more than that… he’smine.
I don’t think I ever really believed in happy endings. Not the kind they write in books. Not the neat ones with soft bows and ring boxes and white picket fences. I believed in survival. In grit. In scars that don’t fade.
But Dante?
He made me believe inus.
And not because he’s perfect.
Because he’snot.
He’s ruinedand feral and stitched together with rage—but under all that?
He’s the safest place I’ve ever been.
He’s home.
I shift slightly, brushing my fingers over the ink across his ribs. That tattoo—he said he got it for me, even if he didn’t know it at the time. A burning rose. Beautiful and deadly.
Just like him.
He doesn’t talk about what it did to him—what happened at the wedding. What it felt like to lose again. But I saw it in his eyes. That split second of devastation when he thought it could have been any of us, buried under the ash.
And he got us out safely.For me. For all of us.
And when he held me—when he didn’t let go—I think a part of me started to believe in peace.
Lucien and Astra…
God, I love them.
In their own way, they’re chaos, too. Lucien with his polished cruelty, Astra with her rage wrapped in silk. They shouldn’t work. They shouldn’tfit.
But theydo.
Theyalways have.
