~ SASHA ~

Zev didn't move, his eyes locked on hers.

"Yes? Is that… a bad thing?" he asked, his voice tipping up high at the end, which was odd.

Sasha swallowed again and shook her head, but she knew her face wasn't exactly painted in glee. "Of course not! No. Of course not," she repeated lamely as her heart cracked open, just a little.

Zev watched her, his brows pinched together. "What is it, Sash?" he asked quietly. "Did… are you unsure? I mean, I know the declaration was kind of abrupt, but I thought we'd already talked about it and you knew how I felt about you. When we were in the fox hole you seemed really happy to—"

"The mate thing?" she said, her voice way too high and strangled. "Yes, yes! I was. I mean, I am! I definitely want that. I feel it. That's our thing, right?" she said, trying to make herself laugh and brush off the bone crunching disappointment that washed over her like a wave.

It wasn't Zev's fault, she reminded herself. Their entire reunion had been a clusterfuck of epic proportions. First he'd had to steal her away from gun wielding robots, then fend off vengeful Alpha Kings, and then protect her from hormonal—possibly homicidal—shape shifters. They'd barely had a moment to breathe, let alone be alone and get romantic. And Zev had said he hadn't even known they were going to be going to Thana three days ago. It wasn't like she could expect him to have woven a rose arch to propose under, or anything ridiculous like that.

Sasha was a practical woman. She'd missed Zev for five years, and here he was, wanting to be with her, to spend the rest of his life with her. There was nothing more romantic than that. Nothing.

It was just that…

"Sash, why do you smell so sad?" His face was pained. He was truly confused, and she realized she was torturing him.

"It's fine! It's fine," she said, shaking her head and pulling him back in, lacing her fingers at the back of his neck and forcing herself to smile. "Don't worry about me, I'm just being silly."

"No, c'mon, Sash, what is it?"

"Zev, it's really fine, don't worry—"

"No it's not! What is going on?" He resisted her pull to come closer, his forehead lined with concern.

Sasha dropped her chin, saturated in embarrassment. It was quite possible that the only thing worse than not actually being proposed to, was having to admit that you wanted him to.

"Zev," she said to the fur on the ground between them, "It's really not a problem. Trust me. I just… the traditions around getting married are different here, that's all. And I just… there's stuff I hoped we'd—" she broke off, her cheeks going hot. "Look, it doesn't matter. This is us. This is where we are. You want me and I want you. That's the important thing, okay? So don't worry about it. Just, kiss me, please."

She brought her face up high enough that she could look at him through her lashes—something he'd always fallen for when they were younger. And for a moment, his face softened and he started to smile.

But then he caught himself when she leaned up to kiss him, and he shook his head and pulled away. "No, I want to hear it. If you're missing something, I can't guarantee it, but tell me so I can at least—"

Sasha groaned in frustration and dropped her face into her hands. "Zev, I was just disappointed that you didn't propose, okay? It's not biggie. I'm embarrassed I even let you see that. I wasn't thinking. So please… please can we just be happy to be together and not talk about it?"

He didn't respond immediately, and when she peered up at him through her fingers, he was gaping, his brows high and eyes wide.

"Oh, Sash… I'm sorry. I didn't even—"

"Please don't apologize!" she shrilled, mortified. "Things are different here. I get it!"

"I'm so sorry, I forgot to ask like a human—"

"It doesn't matter, Zev. I'm getting so much more. I mean… how many women get to see a crowd of Chimera display and try to… entice them?" she said, her smile mostly genuine—because it was something she wished she could have told her friends. They would have flipped. "I'm just glad that we're here together and you're safe and… it's fine, Zev. Really. It just took me a minute, that's all."

And it was, she realized. It wasn't fun. It wasn't what she'd dreamed of since she was seventeen. But she was going to experience something beyond her dreams. Something completely new. And if it ended in Zev being hers forever, that was what she'd really hoped and prayed for. Did it really matter, in the end, how it came to be?

No, she decided. It didn't.

But now, just when she found her smile, just when she shook off the little girl inside of her that had always looked forward to the day she would see a handsome man down on one knee and welcomed the woman that realized the man she got forever was more important than the moment, that man stared down at her with eyes full of grief. He stroked his fingers through her hair and she knew… she knew!

Apparently Zev at twenty-four still had that same, self-condemning streak that the Zev she'd known at eighteen had.

"Don't do it," she warned him when his mouth turned down.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't do that thing you do where you decide you're a terrible person and you start beating yourself up in your head," she said firmly. "Seriously, Zev. Don't do it."

"I'm not."

She gave him a look and he scoffed.

"I don't think I'm terrible. I just wish I'd remembered, that's all."

"And I wish you'd never had to worry about someone shooting me in the head, but we don't always get what we want, right? I'm sorry I brought it up, Zev. Seriously. It's way, way more important to me that you want to have me forever, than anything else. I don't regret this. At all."

His face softened and he shook his head slightly. "You're really amazing, you know that?"

"Well, I have to keep up with you," she said quietly, and her smile was genuine. The ache in her chest almost gone—because she really could see that what she was getting was more important than what she'd lost.

She'd be over it in days, she was sure. Probably just as soon as she and Zev got to—

"I love you, Sash," he rumbled, cupping her jaw and staring into her eyes so that she felt naked to his gaze—and she didn't care.

"I love you, too, Zev," she whispered.

And as they kissed again, she shoved away the niggling little voice in the back of her head that kept whispering questions in her ear about the past, and the future.

Because the warm, strong, solid male she'd yearned after for five years was finally here in front of her, and doing everything in his power to make sure they never had to let each other go again.

She couldn't ask for more than that.