I kiss him back with equal intensity, my hands fisting in his leather cut, dragging him closer even as his ice spreads across my skin in patterns that hurt and heal simultaneously. Everything I forgot comes roaring back with each breath shared between us, memories and sensations, and the bone-deep certainty that this, him,us,the impossible reality of belonging to a dragon, is worth any price my mother’s laws demand.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, Scar is grinning with the kind of dark amusement that suggests he’s been watching our entire reunion with predatory interest.
“Well…” the vampire drawls, his red eyes gleaming in the darkness. “This is going to piss off the witch spectacularly. I’m honestly really looking forward to it.”
Raze doesn’t release me, his hands still framing my face as he holds my gaze with an intensity that makes it hard to think about anything except the way his thumb traces my cheekbone in a gesture that’s probably subconscious but feels devastatingly tender given that he’s an ice dragon who spent centuries without the capacity for gentleness.
“Come back,” he says, and it’s not a request. “The club is riding to war. The fae are coming because they know about you, about what you are and what you know about our operations.” His expression hardens. “Iwon’tlet them take you. Iwon’tletanyonetake you. Not the fae, not your mother, not the laws that say we can’t exist in the same world.”
I should refuse.
I should point out that returning to the clubhouse means breaking the very laws my mother enforced when she wiped my memory, that claiming me publicly as his ol’ lady will bring down consequences neither of us can predict or control.
But standing here in this apartment that smells like lavender and obsession, surrounded by research that proves I never really left him, even without memories to anchor why it mattered, I can’t find a single reason to say no.
“Yes,” I whisper, and watch his eyes blaze with satisfaction. “Take me home.”
Scar’s grin widens. “The witch is going to lose her mind. This is the best entertainment I’ve had in decades.”
Raze releases my face only to take my hand, lacing our fingers together with the kind of natural ease that speaks to claiming deeper than conscious thought. “Pack what you need. We leave in five minutes. The brothers are waiting, and the fae won’t give us long before they make their move.”
I look around the apartment one final time, at the years of research on my wall that became my lifeline during three weeks of amnesia, at the space I’ve occupied without truly inhabiting, at the human life I tried to rebuild from fragments and guesswork.
None of it matters compared to the warmth of Raze’s hand in mine, the certainty of belonging somewhere that feels likehomeeven though it’s built on violence, criminal enterprise, and creatures that shouldn’t exist outside mythology.
Raze makes a call back to the club to fill them in while I finish packing, and five minutes later, I’m walking out of my apartment with nothing but a backpack and the dragon whose curse I came to break, whose heart I accidentally claimed, and whose world I’m choosing over every safe, rational option available to a human woman who knows better than to fall in love with monsters.
Behind us, the research wall burns, dismantled and then lit with ruthless efficiency by Scar himself. Every photograph, every note, every map I pinned up while trying to understand a world I wasn’t supposed to touch now lies crumpled in a steel trash can, edges glowing red as the pages collapse into ash. Smoke stings my eyes, carrying away proof of who I was before all of this…
… before him.
The witch’s daughter and the ice dragon.
Heading back into the mountains where war is brewing, the fae are circling, and my mother’s magic will hunt us down for daring to defy laws older than human civilization.
I should be terrified.
Instead, I grip Raze’s hand tighter and follow him into the darkness,finally,remembering who I am and exactly where I belong.
Even if it means going to war to defend it.
Chapter Twenty-One
ROXY
The clubhouse rises ahead through the trees, stone and timber looming in the dark like something permanent, something eternal.
My breath catches in my chest as the bike rumbles beneath us, my arms locked around Raze’s waist, heat radiating through his leather cut as we take the final turn up the mountain road.
Everything inside me tightens with recognition that goes deeper than memory, bone-deep awareness that this place is mine in a way my apartment never was and never could be.
Behind us, headlights cut through the darkness. Scar, Coil, and Maul, who rode with Raze to drag me home, who found me surrounded by evidence of obsession I couldn’t explain until my memories came flooding back in a rush that nearly brought me to my knees.
Notes in my own handwriting, scattered across walls like prophecy, like madness, like the truth I’d been chasing even when I didn’t remember why.
The bike slows as we reach the compound, gravel crunching beneath the tires. Raze kills the engine, silence slamming down with enough weight that my ears ring in its aftermath. For a heartbeat, nothing moves, nothing breathes. The clubhouse waits, dark windows reflecting moonlight, the forest pressing close on all sides like it’s been holding space for exactly this moment.
Then Raze swings off the bike and turns to me, his hands closing around my waist as he lifts me off with the kind of ease that makes my pulse stutter. His eyes find mine, blue, fierce, andburning with something that has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with possession.