We talked—talked—like people who’d done so a thousand times before. The moment had been …pleasant. And that terrified me.
It didn’t change anything, not truly. One conversation didn’t rewrite history. But it felt like something had slipped loose—like a key had been pressed into a rusted lock somewhere inside me, and it was jiggling. Turning. Threatening to click open.
A flush spread from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes.
A mistake. A tiny, passing thought. And yet it left a crack in something I shouldn’t have ever found the key to.
Chapter Eleven
Barron
Awareness slammed into me like someone had hurled a freight train at my skull. I barely had a second to react. I woke up gasping. My heart lodged in my throat. On instinct, I tried to sit up but couldn’t. A weight pressed against my chest. Not heavy, but firm. Restrictive.
Blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights overhead, I recognized the familiar stone ceiling of my parents’ castle. The infirmary.
I tried to lift my hand,but the same pressure held it down. Something wasn’t right. The air felt wrong—thick, dreamlike. Like I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Because I wasn’t.
I was supposed to be with—Gwen.
The name kicked my mind into motion. Clarity surged, cold and merciless. Dad fading. The gates of Heaven. Gwendolyn.
Gone.
The angels had taken her from me.
A god-awful, guttural sound tore from my chest before I realized I had screamed. My ears rang long after I slammed my mouth shut and tried to get up again. Then I noticed the leather straps, thick ones, holding me down to the bed.
No wonder I couldn’t move.
I faded—then re-faded instantly, fury pounding in my chest like a second heartbeat trying to rip me apart from the inside. My gaze snapped to the bed I’d been strapped to, and rage detonated inside me.
I’d almost forgotten what my curse felt like.
With Gwendolyn, she’d stilled the wrath. Accepted it. She saw me for what I was and loved me anyway.
But she was gone now.
Taken.
And my rage festered like an open wound. My essence pulsed out of rhythm, erratic, as I tried to process what had happened—what I’d lost. Heaven had dared to take her.
I made a mistake in opening the gate, trying to send her away. I thought I was saving her from what my family was about to face. And they’d given her back—spat her out, dressed in Reaper clothes,thank every realm in existence.
Knowing her—every thought, every inch of her body, every piece of her soul—it wrecked me to imagine losing that. I hoped she was safe. But she wasn’t with me.
And now all I could wonder was…
Would the angels let her remember me?
The thought hit me like a punch to the gut. I wiped my eyes and forced my spine straight.
I want her back.
“Barron,” Joy’s voice called gently as she faded into the room, Payne beside her.
“Don’t.” My warning came out low and guttural.
