WAR OF HEARTS ↠ KOL MIKAELSON [1]

THE STAND ↠ EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

The room was quiet, bathed in the soft amber glow of late evening. Outside, the Quarter had begun to settle—its usual chaos dimming to the lull of distant jazz and the occasional rumble of a passing streetcar. Inside the apartment, the world felt suspended, like time itself was holding its breath.

Rhea Monroe stood beside the small couch where Kol lay sleeping, his chest rising and falling in slow, even waves. A thin blanket had been draped over him—though she doubted he needed it. Old habits. Human instincts. A gesture of care she didn't know how to stop offering, even after everything.

It was the sixth time she had checked on him in the last hour. She wasn't even pretending to be subtle about it anymore.

Davina leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, watching her with a small smile.

"So... what're you going to do now?" she asked gently, voice low, not wanting to disturb the silence—or the man who had just clawed his way back to the living after a death that had torn a hole in Rhea's soul.

Rhea turned, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear. There were dark circles under her eyes, remnants of sleepless nights and too many spells—but her expression was resolute.

"I'm going to wait for him to wake up," she said simply, honestly. "And then I'm never letting him out of my sight again."

Davina arched an eyebrow, just slightly amused. "And if he wants to go anywhere?"

Rhea didn't miss a beat.

"Then we go together," she said, with a voice lined in steel. "Wherever, whenever. If he so much as thinks about running off to sacrifice himself again, I'll put a tracking spell on his ass and glue myself to him."

Davina chuckled softly, but the moment quickly turned more serious when Rhea added, almost under her breath:

"God forbid anyone ever tries to take him from me again."

There was a quiet ferocity to the words. A vow wrapped in venom. A promise made not just to herself, but to whatever cruel, chaotic force in the universe kept trying to separate them.

Davina nodded once, reading the weight behind the statement but choosing not to comment on it. Instead, she let the silence stretch—companionable, steady.

The two witches stood there, one by the window, one by the bed, while Kol Mikaelson—resurrected, breathing, whole—slept like the dead.

And Rhea Monroe? She finally exhaled.

But what she didn't know—what none of them could see on the horizon—was that her darkest days were not yet behind her. That the resurrection of a man like Kol Mikaelson would echo louder and deeper than even she anticipated. That ancient forces, long dormant, had felt the shift in balance when she pulled him back from the abyss.

There were debts to pay.

Powers watching.

And promises that would soon be called upon.

But for now, in this quiet, suspended moment, Rhea watched the man she loved sleep. And she believed—for just a little while longer—that they had finally won.