“Mmm.” I closed my eyes, relishing her electric touch. “That’s the good shit right there.”
She laughed, that gorgeous laugh I’d never stop chasing—until it halted.
When I opened my eyes, I saw tears pooling in hers.
“You don’t have to keep this energy up with me,” she whispered. “I know your thoughts. It’s okay to be tired.”
I turned my face, brushing a kiss against her palm. “I’m never tired thanks to you.”
She frowned gently. “You know what I mean. It’s exhausting trying to hold yourself together all the time. We’re allowed to break. We can fall apart and still stop our enemies. None of us expects the other to carry it alone.”
I thought of Harvest. Of what he’d do to Isabella if I faded.
The terror gripped me like water flooding my lungs.
No.
I couldn’t fall apart. I wouldn’t. Harvest could never touch her again.
We had to save Kitty. We had to stop Barron before he did something suicidal.
I pulled away from Isabella, praying to every fucking god left that she hadn’t caught any of those thoughts.
I kissed her forehead and tucked my trembling hands inside my cloak. “Let’s go check on Barron.”
When I opened the infirmary door, my jaw tightened, and the worry doubled. “Where the bloody hell is he? I was only out in the hall for a few minutes.”
“Can you get a read on him?” Isabella asked.
I closed my eyes, searching. I found his essence in the human world.
What the hell?
“Inform August where I’m going.”
“I can come—”
“No.” My tone was sharp. “All I’m doing is bringing him back. I’ll have Nova imprison him if I have to.”
I faded into the human world, arriving inside someone’s home. The house was perched high on a hill. Thunder crackled across the sky as lightning flashed, revealing towering trees to my left.
Stepping onto the balcony, I looked out and froze.
The entire city below was underwater.
Only the rooftops remained visible. House after house swallowed by the flood.
A tight, crawling unease wound through my chest. Hades…I prayed the humans were evacuated in time. But what if this wasn’t the only place like this?
No—
Don’t go there.
I made my choice to save Isabella back then.
And I’d make it a hundred times over, just to have those last few months with her again.
Turning away from the flood, I stepped inside—
