It all became apparent why she’d left for days, sometimes weeks at a time. It was why she was so hesitant to live with him on the island, and why she endured abuse from the inside of a man’s hand. She had a daughter. She was responsible for a beautiful little girl.
In an instant, Circe’s entire world had become his.
Alec held out his hand to the child with midnight hair and two blue moons in her eyes. “Miss, my name is Alec.” But Hedera just stared, not taking the stranger’s hand. Alec hooked a thumb toward his boat, amused by her stubbornness, which he thought had been passed down from her mother. “Have you ever been on a boat before?”
Hedera remained silent, studying the man’s face, deciding whether he was kind.
Alec’s voice lowered to a whisper. Like he was to tell her the biggest secret of all. “When you’re swaying in the middle of the Atlantic, it looks like the stars have fallen right out of the sky to sleep on top of the ocean. It’s a beautiful sight, watching the stars tucked inside the waves and rocked by the sea. And if it were up to me, I would have it always be nighttime just to admire it for hours while the whole world sleeps.”
Hedera’s brows squished together. “But there’re monsters in the nighttime.”
Alec grinned, shaking his head. “That’s what the monsters want you to believe,” he said. “But these monsters you speak of can only come out when you’re deep into slumber. It’s what they call nightmares.”
“Alec!” Circe said, slapping him on the shoulder with her bag. “Quite an imagination you have. Not two seconds, and you’re already frightening her.”
Alec chuckled, fixing himself upright. “It’s okay, I have a secret weapon.”
“A secret weapon?” Hedera asked, eyes wide, brows touching the sky.
“You see the lighthouse beam?” Alec turned to his right just as the lighthouse beam circled again. “I keep it on so when your mother’s here with you, she knows I’m thinking about her, and so she can always find her way back to me. And now the same holds true for you.” Alec grabbed her hands and guided her closer to him. He pointed at the lighthouse, their faces side-by-side. “It’s magic and powerful enough to see from the other side of Weeping Hollow, and in your nightmares—”
“But what if I don’t make it in time?”
Despite the dark cloud that loomed in his chest, Alec smiled. “Even if you don’t make it, and your soul leaves this body, the beam will still be on for you until the three of us are together again.”
Hedera crossed her arms. “Oh, but what if it takes a hundred years?”
Alec’s smile reached his soul. “Why, then this beam must shine for a hundred years.”
“You promise?”
Alec looked into the little girl’s eyes, loathing the idea of swearing an oath he wasn’t certain he had the power to keep.
“I promise to do everything I can,” he said.
A man shouted in the distance. All four gazes followed the direction it had come from. At the other end of the beach, beneath the Cantini castle, flames from lanterns and torches glowed like fireflies in the night.
“It’s too late. They’re coming,” Lacie said. “There isn’t enough time. We must go back.”
“Follow me.” Alec swiped up bags from the sand and clutched Hedera’s little hand. The four of them sprinted across the beach until they reached the cave, and once they were tucked safely inside, their breaths echoed off its walls. Alec turned to Circe. “Go to the boat and wait for me on Bone Island. I will take care of this and meet you there.”
“That’s maddening,” Circe cried. “There are too many of them and only one of you. They will kill you, Alec. And they won’t stop there. They will surely spot the boat and come for us next. I cannot let them take Hedera from me.”
“And let you both return to a monster? How do you expect that of me, then assume I would just wait on an island for you, knowing both of your lives are in danger?”
Circe stared up at him. “We have no other choice.”
He took her head into his hands, his heart pounding. He kissed her cheek, her lips, and pushed his mouth into her ear so Hedera and the maid wouldn’t hear. “I love you, Circe,” he said passionately, almost angrily. “That’s why I have to demand that you take Hedera, get in the boat, and be on your way to Bone Island so I can rip Cantini’s heart out of his bloody chest.”
Circe leaned back, their gazes falling together.
“No one’s ever fought for me,” she said, her voice shattered.
He cupped her face, pushing his forehead to hers. “I would burn down the castle for you, and if I must, I would burn down the entire town.” He swiped her hair back from her face. “I’ve spent almost four hundred days falling in love with you from a distance. I finally have you in my arms, and we’re so close to forever. Circe, we’re so close,” he said in a harsh, suffocating breath. “This is the only option for me because I cannot breathe without you. If anything happens to you—” Alec’s emotion stole his words.
A sea of tears slid down Circe’s cheeks.
There was only one thing she could do.
