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Then he walks away.

I watch him disappear through the doorway, and the room seems to change the instant he is gone. I glance at Damon, then Hunter, and neither of them speaks.

The question is sitting there between us.

What happens if Timothy refuses?

Damon reaches for his glass but doesn't drink. His thumb runs slowly along the rim as he stares toward the doorway Timothy disappeared through.

“He didn't say yes,” he finally says.

“No,” Hunter agrees.

My stomach twists.

I look at the ring still sitting on the table between us. It seems too small for something that has carried so much weight, and suddenly I wonder whether we have just placed something far more complicated in Timothy's hands than a piece of metal.

“What do we do if he doesn't want to give it up?” I ask.

Neither man answers immediately. Because none of us knows.

For so long, the question has been who would be strong enough to wear the crown–who was willing to sacrifice everything to take the throne. Tonight, for the first time, we're asking whether anyone needs to wear it at all.

And I don't know which possibility frightens me more: Timothy deciding to keep it, or Timothy deciding that he is finally done with it and leaving us to figure out what comes next without him.

Whatever happens, I have a feeling the Barons are about to become something none of us recognizes.

47

Arianette

I stand outside the library with my hand resting lightly against the door. It’s closed, but a thin sliver of warm light spills from underneath, cutting across the dark hallway. When I woke up a little while ago, surrounded by Hunter and Damon, there was something missing: Timothy. The bed felt too empty without him. The quiet of the house pressed in around me until the urge to find him became impossible to ignore. I just needed to make sure he was okay.

I tap softly on the door.

“Come in,” Timothy calls, his voice low and a little rough.

I push the door open and step inside. The room is dim except for the single lamp glowing beside the leather armchair. Timothy sits there with a stack of papers spread across the ottoman, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. His shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up, the scar on his chest just visible in the soft light. My eyes drift past him to the wall behind his desk. The murder board is gone. Every photo, newspaper clipping, map with string stretching from pin to pin—cleared away.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, watching me.

“I know you asked for time to think, but I wanted to check on you.” I nod toward the empty wall. “Looks like you cleaned up.”

His gaze follows mine. “I stared at that wall every day for over a year, trying to put the pieces together. Turns out I had them the entire time.” He clears his throat. “It was time to put it away.”

I cross the room until I’m standing directly before him. Without asking, I climb into his lap, thighs straddling his, the soft fabric of my sleep shorts brushing against his cotton pants. His hands shift automatically at my hips.

“You’re a good man, Timothy Maddox.”

A faint, self-deprecating smile touches his mouth. “That may be a stretch. Just because I helped do a good thing doesn’t mean I’m a good person.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I like a little darkness in my men.”

I cup his face with my hands, taking in the fine lines next to his eyes, and the dark eyebrows that raise in question. I love the feel of his stubble–his beard longer now since the accident. It’s crazy to me that I used to have no idea what he looked like–that he hid himself for so long.

He studies me for a moment, and I wonder if he’ll send me away, but he licks his bottom lip and murmurs, “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” He reaches up and gently pulls off the satin bonnet holding my hair back. The copper curls spill free around my shoulders, and his fingers immediately thread through them. “I don’t know if I told you, but I love you like this. Wild and free.”

The way he says it—and the way his hands move over me—makes it clear he isn’t only talking about my hair. He’s talking about everything we’ve become now that the evil that haunted us has finally been eradicated. The weight of Amber, the tunnels, the fear… all of it lifted. What’s left is this: the two of us in a quiet room, the future still unwritten.