Finn

  As Isla worked in the other room, I couldn’t help but look around the familiar space, once again in awe that I was really, truly, here.

  It had been lifetimes since I first saw her.

  The visions had started before I even knew what I was seeing—flashes of her eyes, her snakes, her strength. A world that didn’t exist yet, but one I’d been waiting for all the same.

  I didn’t understand it then. How could I? Neon lights, steel shelves, a hundred tiny details that felt absurd at the time. I saw her in places that didn’t exist, living in a world I couldn’t comprehend.

  And I hated it.

  Not her. Never her.

  I hated the waiting. The endless pull of time dragging me forward, making me watch as everything around me crumbled and rebuilt itself again and again. I hated how the closer I got to her, the further away she seemed.

  Centuries passed like that. Millennia, even. And with every year, the visions grew sharper, clearer. The lights made sense. The noise, the machines, the strange chaos of the modern world—all of it finally started to align.

  And then I saw her.

  Not in a vision. Not in a fleeting glimpse of the future.

  Her. Real and solid and standing in front of me in a grocery store right by the bananas.

  The absurdity of it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did.

  Because after all this time, I wasn’t waiting anymore.

  But it wasn’t the relief I’d imagined.

  She didn’t know me. Didn’t feel the weight of centuries the way I did. To her, I was just some guy who’d shown up in her space uninvited. Some guy who knew too much and didn’t know how to explain himself without sounding like a lunatic.

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  And that killed me.

  Because I did know her. I knew the way her snakes shifted when she was restless. I knew the sharpness in her voice when she felt cornered, the guarded walls she kept up even when they weren’t needed.

  I knew her strength, her fire, her loneliness.

  I’d seen her dancing to what she calls her angry chick music—definitely one of her favorites. I’d seen her laughing until she’s crying. She’s actually really funny and she is often seen smiling. I’m in those memories. They haven’t even happened yet.

  And she didn’t know me at all. It wasn’t fair. Not to her. Not to me. But it didn’t matter. Fairness had never been part of the equation.

  This was about gravity. About the force that had pulled me toward her across lifetimes, across oceans, across every barrier the universe could throw between us. And now, I was finally here with her.

  I hadn’t planned on saying the names of her snakes. The words had slipped out before I could stop them, a reflex born of knowing them so well. Her reaction had been sharp, defensive, exactly what I’d expected.

  But what I hadn’t expected was how it felt to say their names out loud. It wasn’t just a slip. It was an offering. A piece of myself I hadn’t meant to give, but couldn’t take back now.

  Isla brought out parts of me I hadn’t felt in centuries—impatience, vulnerability, a recklessness I thought I’d buried long ago. She made me want to be honest in ways that felt dangerous, like I was laying my soul bare without her even asking.

  I’d spent lifetimes knowing her, waiting for her, aching for this moment. And now that it was here, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I wasn’t sure how to not mess it up.

  The weight of waiting wasn’t gone. Not completely. But it was different now, sharper and heavier all at once because this wasn’t just about waiting anymore.

  By Odin, that sounded dramatic.

  I sighed, dragging a hand through my hair and leaning back in the chair. Maybe I’d spent too much time alone. Too much time turning over fragments of the future in my head, building them into something bigger than they needed to be.

  She’d probably laugh if she could hear me right now. Not the kind of laugh that made you feel good, either. The sharp, cutting kind that made you rethink every decision that led you to this moment. I smiled faintly, imagining it. The snakes would hiss their approval. Noodle would flick her tongue in triumph.

  Unable to stay in my head any longer, I knocked on the office door.

  A few moments later it opened, I stepped back as she stepped out, her hair was up in one of those effortlessly perfect, sexy messy buns that women do, without much thought.

  Her snakes were stretching and enjoying the freedom, some flicking their tongues toward me as if testing the air. I caught sight of the smaller, newer ones tucked along the back of her head, their movements sluggish but curious.

  I hated them.

  Not because they weren’t hers. They were as much a part of her as her sharp tongue or the fire in her eyes. But because I knew why they were there. I knew what it cost her to grow them.