Page 91 of Fate Unchained

Boris slashed with his fist, swinging the cepl like a knife. Kyril leaped backward.

Boris’s eyes gleamed. “Morana told me Lilah is a zorzye. With that bloodline, she can have any male she wants.” He sliced again, and Kyril twisted away, but it skimmed his bicep. “Why would she want a vulk?”

“She’d want a vulk because he doesn’t care about who her parents are. She’d want a vulk because every breath he’d take would be for her. She’d want a vulk because he loves her.”

Boris lunged. Kyril spun, twisting out of the way. He leaped and smashed Boris on the upper back. The chort staggered but remained upright, scrambling away. “Love? A vulk? Everyone knows vulk have no souls. They can’t love.”

Kyril gritted his teeth. He’d heard the same shit over and over his entire life. He’d kept those words deep inside him, letting them smother what he really felt. It took Lilah to release them and let him see the truth.

Maybe the vulk didn’t have souls, but he’d lived his life hungry for loving someone. And until Lilah, he’d never found it.

He loved her. He truly loved her.

His chest warmed, and a light, floating feeling drifted through him. When Boris sliced at him again, Kyril danced to the side. As Boris jerked his arm back to swing, Kyril snagged it. With one twist, he snapped the bones in the wrist. Boris howled, and Kyril grabbed the cepl. His hand glowed white, and the silver didn’t burn him. Lilah’s magic protected him.

Kyril slipped the cepl on and punched deep into Boris’s right side. Black blood burbled from his lips, and the chort slumped to the ground.

He didn’t stir.

Kyril spun around. The leshak lay on the ground, with Hans and Blazh on top of it. They tore its jaws off with one twist, and the leshak exploded into a murky black cloud. It rose into the air, circled once, then evaporated.

He turned, and Lilah stood on the right side of the room. Her hair had fallen free of its binding, and she had a scratch across her cheek, but otherwise, she looked fine.

She made a small cry and ran for him.

He met her halfway across the room, and she launched into his arms. He buried his nose in her neck and inhaled. She was here. Safe.

“I heard what you said,” she whispered.

He drew back and cupped her cheek. His hand was huge against her face. “They tell us the day we turn vulk is the day we are truly born. We’re supposed to feel like we’re finally home. Where we belong.” He traced his thumb over her cheekbone. “That never happened for me. I was restless. Unhappy. I didn’t know I was unhappy, it was just the way it always was.”

She put her hand over his.

“It wasn’t until I met you that I finally came alive.” He took a deep breath. “The only time I’m content is when I’m with you. I long for you when I can’t see you. I miss your words when I haven’t heard your voice enough. When you smile at me, the entire world fades away, and all I see is you.” He traced his thumb over her cheek. “I choose you. I’ll always choose you.”

Lilah’s eyes widened. “You do? You want to be with me?”

His heart pounded. “I want our lives joined together, so my immortality is yours. I want you at my side until the stars dwindle and the world ends. And then I’ll make us a den in the afterlife and make sure you’re still tucked beside me. Forever.”

Her lips parted, and she stared at him like she’d never seen him before. “I want to be with you, too.”

“When I was eleven, I swore I’d never ask anyone for anything ever again.” His anger and bitterness toward his mother flickered through him for a moment, then drifted away. That was the past. Lilah was his future. “But I have something to ask you. Will you marry me? Be my mate?” He swallowed hard and finally freed the words deep inside. “I love you.”

The beast inside him purred. Its clawing finally stopped.

She smiled, and though he stood in a destroyed library, wind and rain lashing at his back, he felt like he was on top of the world, basking in the suns. “Yes. Yes. I already chose you. I love you.”

37

Her hand remained tucked in his while they swept their wing of the Hall, and they worked as a team, with Kyril using his vulk senses, and her ready with her rune magic in case Morana appeared. She kept squeezing Kyril’s hand to make sure this was all real. That he’d really just become her mate.

The four vulk—and she’d quickly met Hans and Blazh—divided up to search Herskala Hall, but though they searched until the early hours of the morning, there wasn’t a trace of Morana. Not a hint of the sulfur scent from whatever enchanter magic Morana had used lingered in the Hall, either. Only the grimoire remained, sitting quietly in the center of the library. Lilah had scooped it up and tucked it into her bodice. They’d deal with it later.

After combing through every room and closet, in the wee hours of the morning, the four vulk and Lilah gathered at a second story window. Shouts alerted them they were no longer alone, and as the suns peeked over the forest, spreading a pale, pink-tinged sunrise through the windows, people flooded onto the grounds. A familiar figure in a dark coat, her dark hair pulled back, pulled a pocket notebook out, and began scribbling furiously.

Finn growled. “The nosy reporter is here.”

“The one you agreed to let interview you,” Lilah said.

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