Maybe he could love me.
Because she was already lost in love for him.
At last she pulled away. For a moment, they searched one another’s eyes. She was afraid of what he would find in hers.
In his, she found a warmth and a dread that ripped her heart to pieces.
“What next?” she asked.
His face was grim.
“You thought you were bringing me here to save the shadow dragons. Instead we might be all that stands between a monster unlike anything seen in hundreds of years being unleashed on the world. The Soul-Eater will mean the end of thousands upon thousands of shifters and the secrecy that has kept you safe within the human world. He will not keep his powers secret. He will reveal the existence of shifters, and destroy it, in the same moment.”
“No one’s coming to help us,” she reminded him. “We have no way of contacting anyone in the outside world, and Eloise will be here in a few days.”
“Then you’ll have your wish after all, my heart’s light. You’ll save the shadow dragons, and the world. There is simply no other choice.”
“Or die trying.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
He hesitated. “As for contacting the outside world—there might be one way.”
34
Julian
Or die trying.Francine’s words echoed in his mind as he led her back up the winding route to the main hall. She hadn’t sounded scared.
And that scared him.
She had thrown herself into this catastrophe without a care for her own safety. She had been betrayed, and used, and everything she’d thought was true was a lie. The blazing certainty that had brought her this far had nothing left to burn.
Except herself.
He would not let that happen. Even if it meant the Soul-Eater escaping.
Even if it meant his own death.
35
Francine
The ground had moved beneath her feet again. The world had changed. More mysteries uncovered, more information to unpack—and something to do, thank god, something todo, to stop her mind from whirling around the biggest change of all.
Julian wanted her. Yes, they’d fucked in the bathtub. And yes, she was describing it as fucking, even in the privacy of her own head, because the truth terrified her. That there’d been more than just physical release to the act. More than the spike and crash of adrenaline after their brush with death.
But he wanted more. And so did she.
Heunderstood her. It made her feel sick and exultant at the same time. He saw how weak and scared she was, how everything she touched turned to poison, and he still—
She shook her head firmly.
She had a purpose. That was all she needed to focus on. She and Julian would stop Eloise and her fellow fucking maniacs.
And she would stop Julian from taking the obvious way of achieving that.
She glanced sideways at him. His gaze was distant—communing with his dragon, perhaps, or thinking ahead to their next steps.
