Chapter 205

Ella’s POV

I paced my room that night until long after I heard the others go to sleep. By the time the house was finally quiet and still, it was long past midnight—too late for my exhausted mind to continue reeling, but the excitement of what I was about to do would keep me up for a long time yet.

Once I was certain that everyone was asleep, that I could sneak through the halls unnoticed, I slipped out of my room and quietly hurried down the corridor.

The house was quiet and dark, everyone having gone to sleep already. I was able to make it to Alexander’s room without running into a soul.

Taking a deep breath, I lifted my hand to knock on the door—as if I’d need to knock. As if it was even necessary anymore.

As if he’d sensed my presence through the wood, a quiet thrum reverberated through the bond. Alexander’s scent drifted out to me, enticing me forward. Without knocking, I turned the handle and opened the door.

The moment I set foot inside, Alexander was on me. His mouth crashed onto mine with a desperation that I responded with in equal measure.

Without hesitating, he lifted me into his arms, and I wrapped my legs around him as he carried me over to the bed. We collapsed into the blankets in a tangle of limbs and lips. I cradled his face in my hands, tracing my fingers across his familiar stubble.

I wanted to memorize him. All of him.

When we finally pulled back for air, our lips swollen and red from the passionate kiss, Alexander sat up and pulled me into his lap. He brushed the hair out of my face and studied me for a long time. His green eyes were soft and tender and full of disbelief in the dim light, and every time his gaze met mine, I saw the look of fear flickering beneath it all.

“I’m here,” I whispered, taking his hand and pressing it to my chest so he could feel my heart beating through his palm. “It’s real. It’s me.”

Alexander didn’t respond right away—just kept staring at me in shock and relief and a multitude of other emotions that I couldn’t completely disentangle from one another.

Finally, throat bobbing, he whispered, “Your eyes…”

“Do you like them?” I looked up at him. “It took some getting used to for me, but I think they suit me.”

His mouth twitched into a faint smile. “They’re… different from what I grew to love. But they’re beautiful. Stunning, even.” He traced his thumb across my jawline, then pinched a strand of dark red hair between his fingers. “Your hair, too. It reminds me of mahogany.”

“I’m still the same inside,” I pointed out, as if I needed to reassure him—or perhaps myself—of that. “I’m still Ella.”

Alexander loosed another small breath, then leaned forward and peppered more kisses across my face—my cheeks, my forehead, my nose, my jaw, my neck.

“I want to hear everything from your point of view,” he said. “Tell me what it was like. What you remember.”

And so I did. Over the next half hour, I recounted everything to Alexander—carefully skirting around the actual moments of my death, of course, because it was still too painful to say out loud. I told him how I woke up in the forest, how the farmer who I unwittingly condemned helped me get here, how confusing and lonely it all was.

I told him everything. I told him about the hardest parts, the best parts, the happiest, the saddest. I told him how it felt to watch him hold our son, knowing that I couldn’t tell him I was standing right there. I told him about leaving flowers on my own grave.

And of course, I told him about all of the times I wanted to reveal myself to him, but couldn’t.

By the time I was finished, I was a little breathless, and tears had somehow slipped down my cheeks, leaving behind sticky tracks that Alexander kissed away. We were laying in bed now, wrapped up in each other, still fully clothed.

Somehow, being like this felt even more intimate than making love.

“I always sensed that you were right here, watching over me,” Alexander said, trailing his fingers down my arm and then back up again until it made my hairs stand up on end. “I swore I could sense you nearby, and sometimes, it was so intense that I thought I was going insane. I even had Dr. Evelyn examine me to make sure.”

I lifted my brows. “You went to the doctor?”

Alexander nodded. “When I kept feeling the mate bond, knowing you were… dead, I thought I must be going mad because I’d lost you. But she told me I was perfectly healthy. Strangely, hearing her say that made me feel even more insane, because I thought… how could you be fully gone, and yet I could still feel you nearby?”

“Because I was here. All along.” I cupped his neck in my hands. “I never really left.”

“I wish you could have told me sooner,” he whispered, placing his hand over mine.

“I wish I could, too.” I bit my lip. “But I couldn’t. This curse… It already took an innocent man. And it’s still ravaging Liam. And you—”

My words cut off with a small choke of agony. Alexander responded by pressing his lips to mine in another tender kiss, wrapping his arms around my waist and flipping us so he was gently caging me against the bed.

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” he assured me as he gently began working at the buttons on my dress. “I promise. This curse won’t get the best of us.”

I wanted to believe him. Goddess, I really did. I wanted more than anything to relax into him and let him protect me, let him handle everything. If it were that simple…

But tonight, it could be. Tonight, just tonight, I could lose myself in him.

Rather than answering with words, I instead helped him unfasten my dress, then slip it over my head. Alexander’s hands ran over me with reverence, as if he were worshipping a marble statue of the Moon Goddess herself.

When he finally disrobed himself, my breath caught. Somehow, after our time apart, he’d only become even more perfect in my eyes. Seeing him like that made me feel whole. Complete.

Our coupling that night was slow and tender, nothing at all like the passionate, sometimes frenzied nights we’d shared in the past when we thought we had more time.

After all, who knew how much time we would have left together? We might make promises to each other, but the universe—the universe was bound to no such thing.

So we took our time. We moved together like a slow dance, one step at a time, each kiss, each touch, each motion a delicate practice in the art of savoring one another.

We moved like that until we couldn’t hold it in anymore. Until the feeling of his member feeling me, swelling into my inner walls, was too much to bear. Until we finally splintered into a thousand shards of love and longing.

By that point, the first pale light of dawn had begun to crest over the horizon. I moved to get up, to get dressed and hurry back to my room, but Alexander pulled me back down beneath the sheets with him before I could even climb out of bed.

“No,” he murmured into my neck, his breath warm and comforting against my bare skin. “You’re staying with me tonight. And tomorrow night. And every night after that until the end of time.”

I didn’t resist. Because for now, our little bubble of bliss and foreverness could last.

We could save our facade for the daylight hours.

But for now, all I wanted was to curl up with my mate beneath the covers and let him hold me until the first rays of sunlight eventually tore us apart.