my forehead. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
“It was,” I assured him, grinning. “I love you, too.”
“Get some sleep,” he added. “I have a surprise coming for you tonight.”
“A surprise?”
“You’ll see, sweet pet,” he promised. “Now dream of me.”
“I don’t need to dream,” I told him. “Not anymore.”
Because he was my dream. I just hadn’t known it. And now that I had him, I’d never let him go.
He was the light at the edge of my dreams, that little glimmer of hope I was too scared to believe in. So I ran to the nightmares instead, hardening my heart to prepare for the world around me.
It was still a violent existence.
Monsters continued to lurk in the shadows.
And the world wouldn’t brighten overnight.
But I had a beast in my corner now.
My royal. My prince. My Ryder.
My star in an otherwise dark night.
I would forever reach for him.
Just as I knew he would forever light my path.
My eyes fell closed.
No dreams.
Only my reality.
With my forever mate.
I woke sometime later to the sensation of a finger drifting across my jaw. My eyes blinked open to find Ryder standing above me, dressed in an all-black suit. “Your surprise is here,” he whispered.
“What?” I asked, my mind fuzzy from sleeping for what felt like too long. A glance out the windows showcased a pitch-black night with the city lights gleaming all around. I much preferred the view from his house, something about the isolation calling to me.
“Go have a shower. Then you’ll understand,” he said softly, his thumb tracing my lower lip.
“Are you joining me?”
“Mmm, an offer I’d love to accept, but I have company to attend to.” He leaned down to kiss me softly before pressing his lips to my ear. “And so, my darling pet, do you.”
I frowned, not understanding.
Then my nose twitched.
We had company in the suite.
“Silas,” I recognized, smiling.
“Yes, he’s here,” he replied, a secret twinkling in his gaze. “Go shower, pet. You’ll see.”
I blamed a night of fucking and my groggy state for missing the obvious. Because it wasn’t until I’d showered, changed, and walked into the living room that I finally caught on to the surprise he had in store.
She stood in the middle of the living room, her familiar red hair glistening beneath the lights, as she turned to greet me with a smile I felt to my very soul. “Rae!” I ran to her, throwing my arms around her neck and holding on for dear life. She broke the second we touched, her shoulders shaking as we embraced in a sea of silent tears, our misery turning to joyous disbelief.
Silas watched from the side of the room, his own eyes holding a glimmer that said he understood.
Because he did.
We all did.
It was that unspoken feeling between us, that knowledge that we would never see each other again after Blood Day. Yet we never actually said it. We refused to acknowledge it. But it was there, that dreaded feeling of our pending separation and subsequent deaths. And it came true the second they called my number, gave me a designation, and sent me off to the breeding camps to die.
We couldn’t show our fear that day.
We were forced to hide our tears.
But we could shed them now.
And we did. For each other. For our past. For our future.
We were alive.
Together.
And immortal.
It was the miracle we never could have anticipated, an impossibility that floored all of us now. Our tears turned to smiles, blossoming into laughs. And then the three of us were hugging, our trio flourishing with renewed friendship, underlined in hope.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Rae finally said, grabbing my cheeks as though to convince herself I was alive. “And a hybrid? What’s that like?”
“Oh, no. I want to hear about being Kylan’s Erosita,” I said. Silas had told me all about Rae’s relationship with the infamous royal, but now I wanted to hear it from her.
“I imagine it’s similar to being Ryder’s mate,” she replied, arching a brow. “That’s what he called you when I arrived this morning.”
“Did he?” I asked, my cheeks warming. It was one thing for him to say it to me, another to refer to me in that manner to others.
“His exact words were, ‘You. Upstairs. My mate wants to see you,’ ” Silas said, doing a horrible impersonation of Ryder’s voice. “Apparently, I’m also mandated to be here. He informed me I am to visit monthly at a minimum.”
My lips twitched. “That sounds like Ryder.”
“Edon wasn’t amused,” Silas replied.
“Neither was Kylan,” Rae agreed.
“ ‘My