"The women first," Nikolai said flatly.
Anton's smile widened. "Of course. What kind of monster do you think I am?"
He gestured to his men.
A door opened in the warehouse behind him.
And I saw her.
Auralia stumbled into the grey light between two guards, and everything else disappeared.
She was pale. So pale—the particular pallor of someone who'd been kept underground, away from sun, away from anything warm or living. A bruise darkened her cheekbone. Her clothes were the same ones she'd been wearing when they took her, rumpled and stained now.
But she was alive.
Her eyes found mine across the distance, and I watched something break open in her face. Relief, terror, love, desperation—all of it crashing together, too big to contain, spilling over into tears that tracked down her damaged cheeks.
I couldn't run to her.
Couldn't show weakness, couldn't give Anton any ammunition, couldn't do anything but stand here with my hands at my sides while she walked toward me on shaking legs.
Sophie came next.
The sound Nikolai made was barely human. A wounded animal noise, the particular keening of someone seeing their whole world walk back to them. Sophie was worse than Auralia—haunted eyes, trembling hands, something fundamentally shattered in the way she moved.
But she moved toward Nikolai. Collapsed into his arms the moment she reached him, her whole body going boneless with the relief of contact.
"Katya," she sobbed against his chest. "I need to see Katya—"
"She's safe." Nikolai's voice cracked on the words. "She's with Dedushka. She's safe, baby. I promise."
Maya came last.
Konstantin caught her before she finished walking—two massive strides and she was in his arms, lifted off her feet, held so tight I wondered if she could breathe. She gripped his shirt with both hands and didn't let go.
And then Auralia reached me.
I pulled her close.
The weight of her—God, the weight of her against my chest. Smaller than I remembered, somehow, like the ordeal had carved pieces away. But solid. Real. Here, finally here, and I buried my face in her hair and breathed her in.
"I've got you." The words came out broken. Wrecked. Everything I'd been holding back for the past forty-eight hoursflooding through the cracks in my control. "I've got you, little bird."
She was shaking.
Fine tremors running through her whole body, the particular vibration of someone whose nervous system had been pushed past its limits. Her fingers found the front of my shirt and gripped, the same way she'd gripped in bed, in moments of surrender—except this was different. This was desperation. The particular need of someone who'd been afraid she'd never touch me again.
"You came," she whispered against my neck. "You actually came."
"Always."
I meant it. Would always mean it. Whatever happened next—whatever Deshnev did or didn't do, whatever price we paid for survival—this moment was true. I had come for her. Would have burned the world down to reach her.
She pulled back just enough to look at my face. Her grey-green eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, but searching mine with that particular intensity I'd fallen in love with.
"We’re really leaving?"
The question cut through me.
