21
SAVANNAH
LOVE YOU LIKE THAT - DAGNY
I’d feltthe electricity in the air when Nyx and Giulia stared at each other and Link had broken them up.
Nyx was mean, moody, a bear with a paw full of blisters that shielded the broken glass lodged in his flesh. I’d gathered, from the whispers of gossip that spread among my sisters-in-law, that he was the one who’d broken Camille’s heart.
But I knew a love like his and Giulia’s.
It didn’t excuse cruelty, nor did it permit negligence.
Yet when I thought of Camille and her Brennan, and of Inessa and her Eoghan, Aela and her Declan, Aoife and her Finn, I knew that each of us shared that same ability to make magic happen.
You could only do that with the right person.
Before Aidan, I’d been half-convinced that love was a con. More than that, a conspiracy. That men used it to control women, to oppress them.
Hadn’t I seen it with my own eyes?
Jen hadn't helped. She was more convinced that love was a losing game than I was.
After him, I'd learned love was like you were keyed into someverbotenpart of the universe. Something that only unlocked when you felt this deeply for another person, when you trusted this wholly.
The songs made sense.
The poems resonated.
That was why the second he stepped out into the yard, I knew he was here.
Relief almost made me sag, but my cat dug its claws into my arm. The damn thing was heavy, but whenever I put it down on the ground, it wouldn’t leave me alone, had almost tripped me up three times, so I’d taken to carrying it.
At that moment, I was grateful.
The pain gave me an edge.
It let me turn around, let me face the crowd as I saw him standing in the French doors that led to the garden.
Rex was beside him. The Prez murmured something in his ear then stepped into the yard too. Was I surprised when he found his Rachel? No. He immediately collected their baby, Lisandra Sommer, Sommer for short, and hugged her to his chest.
That was the power of love.
It brought strong men to their knees, and they didn’t mind. They embraced that weakness because it made them even more formidable.
He saw me then.
At that exact moment.
His glance darted over the yard on the hunt for me until, finally, our gazes clashed and held.
That was when I felt it.
My skin tingled.
My heart pounded.
My lungs burned.