A year after Black Harbor’s civil war ended, Evan stood firmly as its second most powerful man.
Youngest ever.
Least forgiving.
Most feared.
He was still in school during the day.
Still at my door at night.
Still infuriatingly beautiful when he wanted something from me, which was often.
The plush ears and gloves I had bought for him eventually got their full use. So did the chains. The collars. Everything else I had picked out in a moment of reckless amusement. In the end, I learned that training a mad dog and spoiling one were not as different as they sounded.
One night, after he had apologized against my throat in a voice gone rough with want, I touched his face and asked again, “Are you high enough yet?”
He nodded.
“Then tell me one more time,” I said. “What do you want?”
His breathing quieted.
His eyes locked on mine with that same bright intensity I had first seen in the hospital bed after I saved him.
“I want us to stand side by side,” he said. “As equals.”
I said nothing.
He went on anyway.
“I want the right to stay with you openly. I want a future with you that no one can laugh at, control, or take away. I want every road you walk to have room for me on it.”
His voice dropped lower.
“From the moment you grabbed my hand in that hospital and told me to come home, that’s what I wanted. I just wasn’t high enough yet to say it.”
Something in my chest opened so wide it hurt.
He cupped my face.
“So I climbed,” he whispered. “And I would have climbed higher if I had to. I would have died doing it if I had to.”
I put a finger to his lips.
“No.”
He went still.
“You don’t get to die for me,” I said. “You live. You stay. Those are the terms.”
He stared at me.
Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth curved.
“Yes, Chloe.”
I kissed him first.
When I pulled back, he pressed his forehead to mine and said, with that same terrible sincerity that always undid me, “My moon.”
I laughed under my breath. “That’s corny.”
“It’s true.”
“Still corny.”
“I love you.”
There it was.
Simple.
Certain.
No games. No masks. No audience.
I kissed him again, softer this time, and answered, “Then stand beside me.”
After that, word spread quickly through Harbor City.
The untouchable Prescott heiress had a man beside her now.
A dangerous one.
A loyal one.
A mad dog with sharp teeth and no leash except the hand he chose to stay under.
People said if Miss Prescott pointed, he would bite.
They were wrong.
He didn’t need pointing.
He already knew what was mine.
And he protected it like something sacred.
As for me, whenever I looked at him now, I still sometimes remembered that first night—the blood, the shadows, the hand around my ankle, the soft voice saying please.
If I had to choose again, knowing everything I know now, I would still bend down under that streetlamp.
I would still look into those dark, starving eyes.
And I would still say the same thing.
Come home.