I trapped my fingers in his hair and pulled his head to mine.
"Only, I don't have more. I am so tired, Daphne. So fucking tired. All I have is you, and if ittakes you… I will fucking…"
"Stop," I breathed against his lips, giving him my air in slow, steady pieces until it was something he could hold on to. "Breathe with me."
He shivered, the muscles in his chest going taut.
"Thay!"
I exhaled, and he inhaled.
He inhaled, and I exhaled.
I breathed him in, and he breathed in me.
"Daphne."
"We're married. It is done. And I promise life will never leave you without me, or me without you." His hands bruised deeply, holding onto some invisible thread with all his might. "I am yours, and you are mine."
Thay's warm tears slid down my cheek and into my mouth. Salt, pine, and forgotten ink stained everything when his fingers slid the edge of my panties to the side. I did not have time to breathe before he was inside me, filling up my stomach with a shadowy promise.
"Till death do us part?" he asked, licking the tears from my face and gulping them down.
"No, Thay," I rocked until his eyelids trembled, everything breaking and coming together in neon letters. "Not even then."
"Death can't have us," he moved my hips, faster, harder, making the stars cry.
"One body," I whispered my vows. Last night he had branded me, but now I was claiming him. "One soul."
"Forever!" he fucked, hollowed out and hungry for something real.
Words like love tumbled before me, falling, twisting… looking fate in the eye. And I couldn't catch it, my feet tripping, my body wanting to rain!
"For…" I cried, catching the sob in a whirl of purple thunder. "Always."
"For always," he repeated and then slammed his soul straight into my fucking heart.
The night was ours.
The fear was real.
And I had just married Thayor Milo Gavros.
thirty-two
Threx: Cold Math
Returning to Seattle without Daphne was like turning my skin inside out. A new kind of breaking that made the lights a little more hostile and the world twice as fucked up. Suddenly, I was aware of all my demons and the part of me I unbound to keep her. It's funny, I never thought I could feel like any more of a monster until Daphne looked at me and said,I love you anyway.
Fucking hell.
So then why did I taste blood in my mouth?
"You look…" Wolfe tilted his head from the curb, giving me a once-over. "Different." His smile twisted.
I suppose he was proud of himself. From the Chuck Taylors on his feet to the double cup, no foam, fucking triple whatever he always balanced in his hand, he thrived on that kind of mathematical control. The kind I wanted to punch down his goddamn throat.
"You drove?" I asked, scanning for Nathem or Jessie. But it was only Wolfe, skulking in the morning shadows of the SeaTac terminal, wearing a black hoodie and an expression I couldn'tquite read. He looked tired; the black under his eyes making graveyards of his face.