Page 174 of Manacled Hearts

This is my life now. Every single day I wake up unable to fully believe that it’s not a dream running in a sick loop through my head. It’s not too good to be true, because we have our share of challenges, our own issues we’re working through, failings we haven’t fully overcome, but we’re doing all of this together.

The two of us… my darling Evie. My moonlit goddess.

“You’re doing it again. Losing yourself inside your mind.”

Her silver eyes seep into golden sparkles as she turns to me, and I realize I’ve been drifting over to her without thinking. She drops her legs underwater, swimming gently toward me, and I reach for her. Gripping her waist and guiding her legs over my hips, I tread water for the both of us.

“You’re mine…” I whisper, pressing a salty kiss to her lips.

The corner of hers quirks as she brushes the hair back from my face. “You sound surprised.”

“Every day.” I nod. “I wish you wouldn’t have gone through all that pain to get here. I wish I wouldn’t either. Yet…” I let the word drift away.

“I know. It’s funny, really. We condemn the terrible people who destroy us—our lives. We punish them, hate them, and yet… they created the connection between us, our moment, our opportunity for two to become one. They formed the basis of our love story. Without them I wouldn’t have been in that container, and you wouldn’t have been on the other side of it. I wouldn’t have sacrificed myself for those children, and you wouldn’t have looked at me with that gut-wrenching pain in your eyes you didn’t even realize you were bleeding all over the room. There wouldn’t have been an opportunity for us. We would have never met. This heartbreakingly beautiful, fucked up love would have been wandering all alone, drifting through the universe, crying for a loss that it never gained in the first place. Without the pain they caused us, we wouldn’t have felt this… serenity.”

I shake my head, a lump in my throat at the harsh words that make so much damn sense. I hate them nonetheless, but they are the harsh truth.

“I can’t picture a world without you in it. Without you by my side.”

She brushes the tip of her nose against mine, then presses a kiss to my lips.

“You will never have to. You are mine, Finnigan Hennessey.”

“All yours, Evie darling.”

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