Chapter 266

266 Three Hundred and Nine

Lucian

When I returned, Mara was fast asleep, curled around Richard’s small frame like he was her own flesh and

blood.

And in a way-he was. Not by blood, but by heart.

She had promised to love him, to protect him, even though he was the living reminder of the worst mistake I’d ever made. Of Tina. Of everything that came before us.

Yet here she was-showing me every day what love really looked like. Not the kind that demands or forgets, but the kind that chooses to stay.