Dagan’s brows knitted together. The urge to smooth them almost overwhelmed her, but she stayed still. Once he heard what she had to say, he might not want her to touch him.
Lina moistened her suddenly dry lips. “Wh-when she got sick…”
Oh gods, this was so freaking hard.
“Go on,” Dagan urged.
“Thorne left to get her medicine, but he didn’t come back. I found out later he used our money on drugs.”
Dagan’s jaw tightened. “Shit.”
“I…I should’ve done something when he didn’t come back, and I didn’t. I waited for him.” She took a breath. “I waited too long, Dagan. She died and it was all my fault.”
When Lina dropped her head, Dagan placed his fingers under her chin and forced her gaze to his.
“That is horrible, Lina. I’m so sorry.”
She stared at him, not understanding. “You’re…sorry?”
“It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
She shook her head. “I just told you. It was. I made such horrible decisions. I let her down.”
“No.” He gave her a grim, understanding smile. “You did the best you could. I’ll always know that.”
She wished she could feel the same. Maybe, with him, she could at least finally heal. “So…you don’t hate me?”
“Hate you? I could never hate you, Lina. I love you.”
Her knees grew weak at the sincerity in his tone. He meant it. Heavens knew why, but he meant it, and that realization was like lifting a mountain of stones from her back. If he could find it so easy to forgive her, who knew, maybe one day she could forgive herself.
“I love you too,” she murmured, closing her shaky arms around Dagan’s neck.
He lowered his lips to hers, and kissed her with a smoldering sensuality that left her starved of breath.
“Wow,” she gasped when he finally pulled away.
“Tell me about it,” he murmured. “That was a kiss. And I’d fight a thousand dark faes for the privilege to do it again.”
“Thankfully you don’t have to.” She gazed up at him, memorizing the lines and curves of his face. Tracing them with her fingertips. “No one left to fight.”
“Nope,” he said, grinning down at her with love in his gaze.
“So…what are we going to do now?”
“I have a few ideas.”
His eyes crinkled with mischief as he pulled away and reached a hand into his pocket. He withdrew an object, a little black velvet box. She studied it, confused, but then he dropped to one knee and reality dawned.
“Oh shit.”
Grinning, he opened the lid. Inside was a large, perfectly rounded pearl. Its distinctive tint of aquamarine marked it as a find from Gergamesh, the water world that was home to mermaids and sirens.
“Oh.” Not quite what she expected, but she couldn’t deny it was one of the loveliest things she’d ever seen. “Wow. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
“I thought so too. I happened upon it several months ago as I walked by an Otherworlder jeweler shop down in SoHo. I didn’t know what use I’d have for it at the time, but I couldn’t pass it by. It practically sang out to me.”
“I…” Furrowing her brows, she looked at Dagan. What exactly was he getting at here?
He laughed, the deep, smooth sound one of pure joy. “I should’ve waited until I had it placed into a ring, I know, but I thought of it once we got back from Romania and…well, I didn’t want to wait.”
She sucked in her breath. Okay, so maybe this was what she’d expected.
“Lina, I know this is a little crazy.” Dagan took a shaky breath that betrayed the nervousness he’d somehow managed to hide from her. “But hell, we just survived fucking Armageddon, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that no matter how much I’ve got left of this crazy thing we call life, I want to spend it with you.”
“Oh, Dagan.” She reached her trembling fingers out to run them along his perfect face, his beautiful lips.
They curved into a hopeful smile. “Lina, will you marry me?”
Her heart leaped with joy and excitement. He couldn’t have said it better.
Yeah, maybe it was a little crazy, considering they’d just gotten together and she’d already been burned once in the marriage department. But if there was anything she knew with 100 percent certainty, it was that Dagan was as far from Thorne as a man could possibly be.
He was worth taking a risk on. Worth fighting for.
“Yes,” she said, giving in wholeheartedly to the impulse that urged her to accept. “Yes, yes, yes.”
A laugh of joy bubbled out as he broke into a wide grin and jumped to his feet, snatching her into a hug and whirling her around.