DIVISION 52 - BOOK II

CHAPTER LVII

"I have a habit of leaving things unsaid–of waiting and not saying things to you when I know I should–" She cut herself off and took an unsteady breath as I watched her entire face, frozen in my own anticipation. "–Time is so damn short for all of us. This city takes all of our time in a heartbeat and not everyone gets to find the person that makes them burn and live like you do for me..."

I stared at our hands between us and felt them heat as if the ring was ignited.

"Alex I didn't–I know it didn't mean..."

"But it does." she frowned, staring like she could see through our hands and into the gold. "–you are everything to me and you have what was everything to me. I had left that in a dark place and you drew it back out just like you did when we met."

I watched her silently as she loosened my hand and took the gold band around the necklace in her fingers. It gleamed in warm light. The same warmth in her eyes.

My throat was tight. My blood felt thick and my breathing had stopped at some point. 

But she raised her eyes to me all the same as she held that ring in front of me with a more convicted look in her gaze. Why was a blade less threatening than this...

"I know what I want, Makayla. I just need to know it's what you want."

I was staring at the ring again lost in the gleam of the endlessly rare material. All but extinct. So was love like this... Promises and words like these. Surely they didn't exist for people like us? For killers and liars and–

"Alex I–we..." I flickered between her eyes lost. I dragged in a breath and her expression didn't waiver. She wouldn't let go of that ring until I told her point blank that it was not what I wanted for us. That I didn't want the promise of forever with her–but how the hell could I not? Consequences be damned, the world wasn't worth it without her. She knew that. 

So did I.

So I pushed aside the Makayla that feared and regretted and reasoned. I had no place for it looking into those golden eyes. I didn't the first time I saw them and I sure as hell didn't now.

I didn't doubt.

"Ask me." I whispered.

Without breaking my gaze she pulled the blade off the table and cut through the necklace without hesitation. The rope fell away from my neck and freed the ring into her fingers. Scorpion wasn't on her knees before me. She was wrapped in the warmth of my body and held like she'd never be let go when she presented that ring of her past to me and saw right into my soul.

"Makayla Xavier..."

The pulse in my head was so loud it threatened to blur my senses. Her eyes so molten gold I could swim in them. The breath stuck in my throat. Her skin burning hotter against my own–

"I never want to know what letting you go feels like. I don't want to let another god damn second go by without saying the words I need to. I am impossibly in love with you–every part of me. So, there's only one thing I need to ask you..." She glanced down at the ring in her finger and drew the final piece of strength deep within her. It took all I had not to interrupt her and kiss her hard enough to make us both forget ourselves–

"Will you marry me, Makayla?"

The words left her lips I was sure of it. But they still didn't seem real.

How could we have got this far and still be alive to say words like those. To have love like this. This was supposed to end so badly for both of us... Hopelessly wrapped in power games between the sectors and doomed by it. I had all of these thoughts in a flash. In a single heartbeat. I could have them because I also knew my answer long before she asked it. I had fantasised it and pictured how it would go in my mind... A woman like Scorpion asking me such a thing. But it never came close to the full intensity of reality.

It never did.

When I remembered how to breathe I found my voice.

And when I found my voice it didn't crack or waver. It didn't stutter and it didn't hesitate. Because none of those things would have done any justice to the woman before me. I took her hand holding the ring in my own and slowly pulled it forward to kiss her hand. Then without breaking her patient gaze I answered her.

"Yes, Alex. A thousand times yes."

A small breath left her lips. Despite it all, it still surprised her. It still stopped her heart and brought a stunned look over her as she and I both realised what we had done. What we had promised. Perhaps it wouldn't end well for us, but we were damn well going to make the moments count before our time ended.

We were all destined to end. All doomed to burn bright and fade eventually. But at least now we were a part of each other for however long that forever was.

That was enough for me.