I broke into a flat run.
My body was weak, and I was running on an adrenaline deficit, but I needed to find him.
The beat of my heart matched the frantic thump of my footsteps.
I vaulted over the step up to the platform and bypassed his room, even though the sight of it sent a shard right through my heart.
I never should’ve left.
I never should’ve abandoned the demon I loved.
The locked door lay open.
I burst through it and skidded to a halt.
The big monitor that had the countdown displayed on it flashed 0:00.
Charles knelt in the middle of the room.
Beside him lay Cillian, crumpled to the ground. His massive body was carelessly slumped there, not like he’d lain down but had collapsed. His head tilted to the side, his arms out, legs askew. His eyes were shut, his mouth partially open. And he was as still as the grave.
Oh no. No, no, no.
My feet carried me forward, even though my soul had left the building. Charles was pale and somber, the only time I’d ever seen him without a smile or glimmer in his eyes. He clutched his thighs in a white-knuckled grip, and his mouth formed a thin line.
I didn’t stop until I reached Cillian and dropped to my knees.
“Cillian.” I gasped his name out like a prayer, casting a desperate wish into the universe. That he was okay. That what I saw with my eyes wasn’t real. His body wasn’t moving. There was no rise and fall of breaths, no spark of life.
Instead, the man whose presence had drawn my attention from the first second we’d met lay still. Devoid of anything that had once dwelled within him.
My throat spasmed, and a broken sob escaped. I clapped a hand over my mouth, the sound far too loud in the quiet room.
“He wouldn’t save himself,” Charles said, his voice broken. “Even in the end. He signed the contract with Thorin—in order to protect you.”
Oh god. Another sob exploded out of me, and my eyes burned with hot tears. Cillian Ashmore was the noblest man I’d ever met, who deserved far more than the cards he’d been dealt.
He couldn’t be gone.
I threw myself over his chest, the tears flowing freely now. “Come back to me,” I begged, clutching him tight. Except he remained still, unmoving.
Every moment flashed before my eyes.
From the earliest days, when I’d loathed him, when his comments had felt casual and cruel, and yet I’d been drawn to his presence regardless. When he’d left me books by my bedside, and when he’d stolen me out to the gardens at work because he understood what I needed. And those nights. Those glorious nights that I’d wished wouldn’t end. Where he’d fucked me senseless, where he’d shared secrets from his past. Where I’d opened up to him too, and we’d built a trust I’d never believed possible.
And last night, his anguish had been just as intense as mine, yet he’d made love to me the whole night long.
Cillian had loved me so deeply he’d set me free.
He might not be free with his words, but he was a man of action, and I understood in my bones what that had meant. From the moment we met, we’d been magnets drawn together, again and again. I’d believed fate had propelled us together for a reason…except I’d been too blind to see.
Until it was too late.
I sobbed harder, my whole body shaking, as I pressed my cheek to his chest, desperate to hear the beat of his heart—anything. Only stillness remained. His unmoving and silent form, so different from the magnitude of his presence before. My soul was being torn apart by the second, entirely unmade. I’d never fallen in love like this before, as incandescent as starlight and burning just as hot. Yet with Cillian, I’d never stood a chance. My tears soaked into his shirt, but they poured from me unceasingly.
My chest spasmed, my insides tearing apart piece by piece.
“Come back to me, dammit,” I begged. “I love you, Cillian Ashmore. I love you with every ounce of my soul.”
