Se connecterADAMI had never thought peace would feel like this… warmly fulfilling. I laid on my side, propped up on one elbow, watching Sage sleep in my bed.My mate.The word still did something to me. It settled deep in my chest, intoxicating, grounding, all at once. After everything, after the years, I had her here. In my room. In my arms.The doctor had insisted she be transferred here after the final examination. “Rest,” he’d said firmly. “Complete rest.” As if I needed convincing.She laid curled slightly toward me, her hair fanned across my pillow like a spill of midnight silk. Her breathing was steady, her lashes resting gently against her cheeks. Without the tension that had shadowed her for weeks, she looked younger. Softer. I brushed my fingers lightly over her cheek.She stirred.A soft, sleepy moan slipped from her lips, and I couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at mine. It was ridiculous how that tiny sound affected me. I leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.Her
SAGEThe idea of being taught magic again should have frightened me. It did not.If anything, it made something quiet inside me settle. I had never been too proud to learn. I had clawed my way through every skill I possessed—combat, control, leadership—often the hard way. Starting from the beginning did not scare me.What unsettled me was something deeper. I did not think I had the magic gene anymore. It felt gone.Not dormant or sleeping. Gone.As though the goddess had taken back what she had lent me. The abyss, the ancient bloodline that had awakened in me, the tether to something divine—all of it felt like a door that had closed and sealed.Maybe that was the cost. Maybe that was balance.I had reached into power no mortal body was meant to hold twice in one day. I had bent the sun to my will. I had burned an entire region clean.Perhaps the universe had decided that was enough.I flexed my fingers slowly, studying them. They looked ordinary. Human.Was I human again?The thought
SAGEI opened my eyes to white.For a long moment, I did not understand what I was seeing. My mind floated somewhere thick and heavy, like I was suspended beneath deep water. The ceiling above me was smooth and unpainted, carved stone worn down by years of touch and time. I blinked slowly, trying to piece together why my body felt like it had been broken apart and stitched back wrong.My limbs were heavy. My chest ached. Even breathing felt like work.A faint scent of incense curled through the air—earthy and sharp, the kind the priest favored during healings. The smoke drifted lazily toward the ceiling in pale ribbons.Where was I?I swallowed, and even that small motion hurt.Memories came in fragments. Ash. Light. Screams. Adam’s arms catching me before I hit the ground.Vampires. The sun. The abyss. The Queen.I turned my head slightly. At the foot of the bed sat Adam.He was slumped forward in a chair that looked far too small for him, elbows braced on his knees, hands loosely c
SAGEThe vampires were too much.I had known we were outnumbered the moment they poured from their hiding places like a ruptured vein spilling rot into the world, but knowing and witnessing were two different torments. They came in waves—hissing, shrieking, their pale limbs a blur against the dying light. Everywhere I looked there were fangs and red-rimmed eyes and clawed hands reaching, reaching.The ancients were faltering.I felt it in the rhythm of the battle. Their movements, once fluid and devastating, had grown sluggish. They had not fed in days—not on the kind of blood that strengthened their ancient cores and burned away the earth’s taint from their veins. They fought on discipline and pride alone now, and even pride had limits.One of them staggered as three vampires leapt on him at once.I ripped five hearts from five chests in the same breath.Magic obeyed me like an extension of my will. My fingers flexed, and I felt the resistance of muscle and bone give way. Five wet s
SAGEI knew the exact moment we entered the region of the vampires’ lair.It was not marked by a wall or a sign or any visible boundary. It was just a particular shift in the air. A heaviness that settled into my lungs like damp ash. The land stretched wide before us, roughly the circumference of a small town, yet it felt abandoned by life itself. The soil under our boots had turned a sickly gray, cracked and hardened like skin left too long in the sun. Withered trees stood scattered across the terrain, their branches skeletal and twisted, clawing at the dimming sky as though they had once tried to escape and failed. No leaves. No birds. No sound of insects.A creek wound through the center of the region, but it did not flow with clarity. The water was murky and sluggish, carrying a sour stench that rose with every faint stir of wind. The banks were lined with blackened moss, slimy and rotting, as if even decay here refused to complete its cycle.The air was stale. Not merely still—
SAGEI barely had time to think before Adam reached me.One moment I was standing in the center of the arena, the weight of an era lifted from my shoulders, the next I was in the air.I squealed. Actually squealed.He lifted me clean off the ground, arms firm around my waist, and spun me once—twice—again—until the world blurred into gold and stone and cheering faces.“Adam!” I laughed breathlessly, clutching his shoulders.When he finally set me down, I barely had a second to steady myself before his hands framed my face. His eyes—still bright with unshed tears and overwhelming pride—searched mine as if to confirm I was real.“I am so proud of you,” he said.The words struck deeper than all the chants of justice. Before I could respond, he sealed his lips over mine.The kiss was intimate and claiming and full of everything we had both nearly lost. I fell into it without thought, my arms winding around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair as the world around us roared in approval.T







