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“Alexei.” Zevran’s voice has a dangerous warning in it, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me for a second.

“I’m just saying.” Alexei lifts his hands off the wheel briefly. “Some of us had to be in the car with him.”

“Printsessa.” Zevran slides one hand down to cradle the back of my neck, tilting my face up to his. “You’re not being taken. Do you hear me? You’re not going anywhere you don’t choose to go. You’re safe with me. Always.”

Without turning around, Alexei says, “The doors won’t lock from the inside, by the way. In case that helps.”

Zevran is looking at me like he’s hoping I’ll choose him. Like my choice is the only thing in the world that matters. That is what I’ve been waiting for. Someone to want me to choose them and to be terrified that I might not.

All the fight, all the fear, and all the bone-deep exhaustion leave my body at once.

I put my hand in Zevran’s, and his huge fingers wrap around mine as I let my dark Prince Charming guide me into the car.

My carriage awaits.

You’re coming home with me.

Alexei drives the enormous car in silence.

I don’t know where we’re going, but I allow myself the luxury of not caring and, for the first time in forever, not being afraid.

Zevran is sitting with his arm braced along the back seat, and I’m nestled deep against his side, feeling his body heat through his shirt and the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest against my cheek. The leather smell and dark interior of the car are comforting now rather than threatening, and when Zevran threads his large, tattooed fingers through mine, a feeling settles deep into my bones.

Safe.

My thumb plays over the ink on his knuckles, and I find myself smiling to myself.

The city slides past the darkened windows in smears of colored light. My cast is heavy in my lap. I am being driven to an unknown location by two men whose combined body count I don’t want to contemplate.

Improbably, I feel fine. More than fine. I feel held.

The car slows and turns through a gate that opens before we reach it, and I sit up from Zevran’s shoulder to look.

The house is large, but as Alexei pulls up, the headlights sweep across the facade, and I revise that assessment. Not large. Enormous. Three stories of dark stone and glass, set behind a circular drive with a surrounding garden.

I look at it through the darkened window, taking in the staggering beauty of it all. Being at the foot of something this grand feels like stepping into a storybook.

Alexei kills the engine and asks Zevran with careful nonchalance, “Where’s the husband?”

My ears perk up. The husband.

“Tied to a chair. Back there.” Zevran’s voice is flatter and more clipped than when he speaks to me. A different register for a different world.

“Breathing?”

“For now. He and I need to talk.”

“Want me to sort that out?”

Zevran’s hand tightens on mine in the dark. “Would you? I don’t want to leave Cora.”

Alexei nods, already reaching for the ignition.

Zevran helps me out of the car. I don’t ask what sort that out means. I find I don’t care.

This is his world, and I’ve chosen to step into it.

Alexei drives away, leaving Zevran and me standing at the polished front door.