Peace, it turned out, had been a lie.
“Why now?” I asked. “Why risk finding me?”
His expression shifted, fear tightening his features. “They’re rebuilding The Children of the Flame.” The words scraped against old scars. “A new Shepherd took the Circle. He’s sending people out. Looking for the ones who left. Me. You. Sable and her kids.” His jaw clenched. “He won’t stop until we’re all back. Or dead.”
Cold slid down my spine, sharp and fast. “How do you know that?”
“Because they found me first,” he said, voice breaking. “I escaped. But others didn’t.” He dragged a hand down his face, breath coming rough. “I came to warn you.”
The trees swayed quietly beside us, indifferent to everything he’d just said. For a long moment, I couldn’t speak. Gratitude and guilt tangled together until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“Zach,” I whispered. “I’m glad you’re alive. I can’t tell you how much.”
He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the salt on his skin, the sweat beneath it. Familiar. Comforting. Dangerous.
“Then promise me you’ll be careful,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone I came. The people you’re with—they’d mean well, but it’s too dangerous.” His gaze locked onto mine. “Promise me, Lark.”
My stomach twisted.
Chain’s face flashed in my mind. The way his arms had wrapped around me last night. The quiet intensity in his eyes when he held me close, like he was already bracing for something he couldn’t name.
“Promise me,” Zach repeated, stepping closer. “They’re watching. The man they call Shepherd now, he knows about the clubhouse. About the people who helped free you.”
The blood drained from my face.
Chain would be killed.
If Zach was right, if the cult was rebuilding, if they were watching… telling Chain could put him straight in their path.
“I promise,” I said softly.
Zach reached up, his thumb brushing away one of my tears. “You always kept your word,” he said, a faint smile pulling at his mouth. “I’ll find you again soon. Just… stay safe.”
He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, achingly familiar, and then he stepped back. One moment he was there. The next, he was gone, swallowed by the trees like he’d never existed at all.
I stood there long after he disappeared, the wind lifting strands of my hair, my heart too full and too heavy all at once.
He was alive.
Zach was alive.
Just like I’d always dreamed.
And all I could think about was Chain—and how much it already hurt to be keeping a secret from him.
***
I WAS ALREADYtired when the dinner rush hit. Not the kind sleep fixes. The kind that settles in your bones and makes everything feel a step out of sync.
I worked anyway.
Tray steady. Smile practiced. Movements automatic. I laughed when I needed to, nodded when spoken to, let my body do what it knew how to do while my thoughts pulled hard in opposite directions.
Every time my eyes drifted toward the office, my stomach tightened.
Chain was in his office tonight, the door shut. Close enough that I could feel him there… far enough that it didn’t matter. I’d kissed him before my shift like nothing was wrong, like I wasn’t already carrying something I didn’t know how to set down.
Now I couldn’t stop wondering if he’d looked at me the way I’d looked at him in that moment. Searching. Measuring. Trying to decide if the truth was hiding just under the surface.
