A dark red ruby glittered out of a delicate gold ring engraved with graceful, arching lines. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry I’d ever seen.

I stared at it, overwhelmed by painfully twisting emotions.

His hand closed over mine where I still held open the box. “Mia,” he said. “Carmilla sent me to retrieve it for you.”

My head jerked up.

Leander’s face was paler than I’d ever seen it, and his dark eyes glittered with unshielded emotion.

“No more games,” he said. “No more deceptions or shields. This is what I want. You are all I want. That’s been true ever since the moment I saw you standing between me and our neighbors and risking everything for me—even though you wouldn’t even accept my invitations at that point! You are beautiful and remarkable and I’ve never known anyone like you. How could I possibly not want you?”

“But…” My throat was so dry! I licked my lips hastily, swallowing under the heat of his gaze. “I don’t understand. You were only ever playacting with your flirting…”

“No one wants a necromancer in their family, Mia.” The faint smile that his lips curved into was painfully false; I watched his pale throat shift with his own convulsive swallow. “I learned that lesson a long time ago, the last time I begged someone I loved to keep me. It didn’t end well—and this time, it might have led to you breaking our alliance. It seemed so much safer and cleverer to wait for you to make the first real move between us.”

“So it was actually true, what you said earlier?” My voice dropped to a whisper as I stared at him. “All I ever had to do was ask? And you thought I somehow already knew that?”

Leander winced. “I was a cowardly fool,” he said, “but yes. If you had ever asked me to be yours, I would have dropped to my knees in an instant with gratitude.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I would now, too.”

All I had to do was ask….

…For everything I actually wanted from someone who understood exactly who and what I truly was.

It was such a simple concept—and an utterly terrifying possibility. It meant willingly unlocking my own invisible cage of limitations, which I’d built so many years ago out of common sense and reason and self-protection.

I’d have to let my own dreams soar as high as my spirit had at the outskirts of Larimont in the moment when I’d finally let my full power loose for the first time in my life.

…And then trust that Leander would catch me if I fell.

I looked at my first-ever ally and friend, who was waiting for my response with hectic color staining his alabaster cheeks and an anguished look in his gleaming dark eyes.