house. I could see a scruffy dog and even imaginary children giggling and chasing him through the sprinkler.
Evan mourned losing that future.
I hadn’t envisioned it, but now, so did I.
Dreams for the future had become just that, dreams instead of potentialities.
Here we were, not even twenty-one, and we’d gone down a path where there was zero hope that those fantastical wishes would ever come true.
I’d known my future had been bleak when I’d started this, known what I’d be depriving myself of, but I’d never imagined that I’d deprive anyone else of their dreams too. I’d never realized.
I stared up at Evan, and he stared back down at me, his blue eyes awash with emotion.
“Trellis roses?” I asked, unable to get the mental image of what might have been out of my head.
“Your mom and dad’s wedding picture,” he responded and instantly, I knew exactly what he was talking about. In the hallway that led to our bedrooms, there used to be a cheap gold-framed photograph of my parents’ wedding day. My mother had sewn her own dress and covered it in lace. My father’s grin had been as bright as the sun as he’d posed with her on his arm underneath the trellis of sunset-colored roses, their pale-yellow centers fading to a deep pink on the edge of each petal. That photograph had been one of those overlooked staples of my childhood, one of the many tiny things I’d taken for granted that were now gone forever.
Apparently, it had been a staple of Evan’s childhood too.
And a staple of his dreams.
Evan’s head dipped down and his lips captured mine in a soft kiss. “I wanted to marry you under a rose trellis.”
Our lips and tears smeared across one another as we kissed. Our kisses started soft and sad, but quickly grew desperate. His tongue lashed out at mine and I matched his frantic movement until our mouths were so intertwined that I felt certain our souls must have touched.
He broke the kiss, panting, melancholy painting his tone when he said, “I’ll never have you the way I wanted.”
“Maybe not.” I couldn’t lie to him. Our future was basically full of broken wishes as far as the eye could see. And there wasn’t just him anymore. My guys, all of them, meant the world to me.
They were my family now.
I couldn’t give Evan his dream, not exactly. But my eye fell on his wand on the bedside table. “But maybe we can have part of it.” I leaned across him and grabbed his wand. “Do you trust me?”
“I followed you to the Pinnacle.” His response held a hint of sarcasm.
“That was stupidity, not trust,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood as I snagged some parchment and ink off the nightstand and put the little inkwell between my thighs. “Now, shut up.” First, I used my shadow magic to create a rough outline of the shape I wanted near Evan’s spine, so that I could clearly visualize what I wanted to create without ruining the surprise for him. Then I spread the parchment across his broad back and then dipped my wand in the ink.
I wrote a simple spell; one I’d seen Tia use at least a dozen times over the years as she magically swapped out her body art. When I was finished, soft yellow sparkles fluttered through the air and landed on Evan’s left pec. A tattoo formed there—a trellis rose with sunset-colored blossoms. When his tattoo was fully formed, I wrote the spell again and gave myself an exact replica, embedding it over my heart.
After the magic had settled, I glanced over at Evan. “You may not get me exactly the way you wanted, but I’m still yours.”
His hand traced my jaw and he leaned in for a kiss only to jump backwards as the bedroom door flew open and Grayson Mars yelled, “You monster!”
I had to swallow a huge laugh that threatened to burst from my lips as all the other guys came crowding into the room, pushing Gray from behind.
“What’s going on?” Z asked grumpily.
“Is someone hurt?” Malcolm quizzed.
Andros just stomped into the room and looked me up and down, as if he could decipher what was wrong by looking at me.
Gray prowled in front of me like a caged lion. He held out his arms and made a choking gesture in my direction.
But his fury only brightened my mood. His anger poured over me like sunshine as I raised my eyebrows and said in