Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Seventy-SevenEvaline

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Evaline

I t wasn’t long after returning from the Night that Maddox asked me to go on a walk with him.

My magic hummed in my veins like it always did when I was near the beach. And, as Maddox and I walked in reach of the tide, bare feet stepping through the wet sand and the waves, my magic was alight. It rolled in my veins as if it were happy to be here.

Be here, in my body once again, and in full power. Be here, in the water, in Rominia. Be here, with my hand tangled up in Maddox’s in the middle of the night, only the soft glow of the moon to light our way.

I looked up at him. At the way the moon hovered behind him. At the way the shadows it cast over his features sharpened his jawline. At the swoop of the long curl that sat upon his forehead.

There’d been a time I feared I’d never see him again, and now that time seemed so distant. So far away and far from my mind. In this moment there were only the two of us. Only him, and I. Only my magic swelling around us and the tide lapping beside us.

Maddox smiled down at me when he caught me staring.

He laughed. “What?” He swiped a hand down his face, down his scruff. “Do I have something on my face?”

I smiled and shoved him with my shoulder. “Does anything have to be wrong for me to stare at my mate, lovingly?”

His brows raised and he let go of my hand to toss an arm around my shoulder.

“Oh, it was lovingly, was it? That changes everything,” he said, waving a hand over his face. “Please, continue.”

A narrow spout of water spit out from the tide and sprayed his cheek. He laughed, wiping it clear, and I couldn’t help the giggle that slipped through my lips.

“No fair, you can’t use your magic against me,” he said as I stepped in front of him and started to walk backward, preparing to run.

I scoffed. “Like you used your extra abilities,” I said, wriggling my fingers at him, “against me when we first met?”

His smile grew and he shook his head, opening his mouth to speak but I pointed a finger at him.

“See! You did, so now you can’t even be annoyed by my magic.”

He started to nod, but another spray of water shot at his ear, and he shook his head, laughing.

“You better watch out, Eva,” he warned with a playful look in his eyes.

I threw my hands up in innocence.

“It won’t happen again,” I lied and he nodded, reaching for one of my hands.

“Good,” he mused. “What was it you called my extra abilities in Kembertus? At the Ball?”

My smile grew as I remembered the conversation, when he knew my affection for him before I truly did, and how it had infuriated me.

“Maddening,” he said, nodding toward me. “Now your extra abilities are maddening,” he said, leaning forward to kiss me, but I turned to run at the same time a spray of water hit him in the face again, and I heard his chuckle behind me.

I ran and knew he’d catch up in a breath. Not only from his speed, but by the fact that I was laughing uncontrollably as I did and it slowed me down.

And then his arms were wrapped around my abdomen, his chest pressed against my back.

“Got ya,” he whispered in my ear as he lifted my feet from the ground. I threw my head back against his shoulder and laughed.

Gods, I had missed him. And each moment we spent here together, laughing and loving one another, healed another piece of me inside.

“Only because I didn’t use any magic to take you down,” I teased back to him and he chuckled in my ear.

“I know,” he said, and his tone grew serious. “You’re amazing,” he whispered and I felt a shiver crawl down my spine.

“Evaline,” he started as he set me on my feet again and I turned to face him. “I know I’ve said it so many times, and I don’t ever want you to think that the frequency of it is lessening the truth behind the words. I don’t say it often for any other reason than because it is how I feel, and if I keep it bottled up, it becomes overwhelming.”

I smiled up at him as he took my face in his hands and stepped closer.

“I love you, so completely. With every ounce of who I am. With every beat of my heart and every breath I take. You are my one and only, and I never want you to go another moment without hearing it ever again,” his voice choked at the end, tears filling his eyes.

“I love you, Maddox,” I whispered back, running my hands up to rest on his chest. “So much it’s terrifying.”

He leaned forward to kiss me, and when he pulled back, he was smiling.

“When I told Aurora and Jacqueline that I hated watching your wedding to Bassel, I wasn’t lying.”

I nodded, tightening my hand around the fabric of his shirt.

“I know,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t mean for you to apologize. I just want you to know that it was awful to watch. To think, for even a moment, that perhaps you had feelings for him.”

Guilt ripped through me, but he continued.

“And then in Mortithev, at that ceremony.” He shook his head. “I know it wasn’t a wedding, but Gods, it looked like one.”

I watched as the tears filled his eyes again, saw them through a lens of my own, and nodded, unable to speak.

“And it brought all those same feelings back,” he whispered, then released my face and slid his hands down my arms until he took both of mine in his. “And it just reminded me of what I had to do. What I’d wanted to do since the moment we came here. I’ve been prepared for it, but waited. I didn’t want you to feel rushed into anything.”

He shook his head and my heart pounded in my chest as I looked up at him. Hope fluttered inside of me, hope that this was it.

“After leaving you, after losing you, I know that there’s no time but now,” he whispered. “And I meant what I said that first night back. No more doing this life without each other. No more risk-taking on each other’s behalf. Now, we do life together, only at each other’s side.”

I nodded through my tears. “You and me, always,” I whispered through the lump in my throat.

His smile brightened as he nodded. “Always,” he said, then pulled his hand from mine to dig into his pocket.

A laugh fell from my lips as he lowered down onto one knee, one hand still holding mine and his smile beaming up at me, brighter than the moon above us.

“I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, and it’s only grown every moment since. I love that you’re fierce, and kind. That you’re strong but vulnerable with me. I love that you will do anything for those that you care for, and that you fought for me when nearly everyone else had given up. I love your dark and your light. Your magic and your might.” His face scrunched up for a moment as he laughed. “I didn’t realize I was going to rhyme.”

My laughter broke up the tears that flowed down my face, but I nodded through every word he said and kept my eyes on his even though I saw his other hand hold a small black box in the space between us as he sobered again.

“Evaline Manor,” he whispered, and a sob of happiness burst through my lips at the sound of my full name on his. “I will love you for the rest of my existence. Until the end of my days, and in the Night that follows. I will love you with everything that I am, and I hope you will always accept it.”

He stared up at me and smiled, then swallowed.

“I have watched you wed once,” he croaked. “And watched again in the same fashion as another man tried to make you stay at his side forever.”

He shook his head and slowly opened the small box to reveal the same diamond ring I’d found in our closet so many weeks ago.

“Please, tell me it’s my turn,” he rasped.

And then he whispered the words I had heard once before. Under near opposite circumstances, from a man that I loathed. And though I’d always feared hearing those words—when I was in Kembertus and afraid of being forced into a marriage I did not want—and though I despised them when they’d exited Bassel’s mouth, they landed in the air differently this time.

This time they sounded not as a question, but as a prayer.

Maddox whispered them against the night sky. Against the moon and the stars and the tide lapping at our side.

He whispered them, and as he did there was not a second’s worth of doubt in my mind, not a single reservation. Not a moment of hesitation. Never again, not with him.

And all of that certainty was born from only four words.

“Will you marry me?”