When Ayla closed the glass doors behind them, she joined Nina on a bench.
She inhaled deeply. “I know I should have said this earlier, but I couldn’t.”
“You don’t need to excuse yourself,” Nina said, holding Ayla’s hand with her own. “Whatever you said or didn’t say, it was for a reason.”
“It was,” Ayla admitted. “I trust you with every single inch of me. I know you would want to know, but…I didn’t want to worry you.”
She felt Nina nod slowly. “It’s your hand, isn’t it?”
The weight Ayla was carrying left her chest. “Always so clever, little dove.” She almost choked on her last two words, realizing she had never said them to her directly, and feeling the heat rush trailing up Nina’s neck up to her cheeks. “When I touched the piece of heart in the North, it didn’t just stain me. It’s her ink, her blackness linking me to her. The Queen speaks to me, even if less often and less loudly than when she speaks to you.”
Nina’s swallow was sharp in the quiet. “Hopefully, Indianna will free us both from her soon. She doesn’t deserve to be part of someone as pure and brave as you, Ayla. She truly doesn’t.”
Ayla steadied herself, breath trembling in and out, gathering every shard of will she had ever possessed. At last, she whispered, “There’s something else I need to tell you. Something I should have said long ago.”
But before she could, a thunderous crash echoed down the hall.
Ayla sprinted toward the sound, stopping only when her hands struck a door long sealed shut.
“Lenna? Is this you? Are you okay?” Ayla shouted as she knocked on Lenna’s door.
From inside came Jake’s ragged breath, and then his voice. “Sorry, the bed broke.”
Ayla frowned. Well,himbeing here was unexpected. The broken bed, not so much.
“I don’t care about furniture. IsLennaokay?” she insisted.
“In the middle of deep-throating my cock while touching her wet pussy,” Jake said cheerfully. “I’d say she is better than okay. Lenna? Are you okay?”
Ayla covered her face with her palm. “You two didn’t just come to the safehouse and start fucking before saying hi to anyone, did you?”
“Since you ask for details, my wife and I are not technically fucking just yet,” Jake replied smoothly. “And—hi, Ayla. Better?”
“Your wife?!” Ayla gasped.
Raoul leaned in, whispering in her ear with a smirk she could feel.“See? They confessed and then married. Step one, step two. Easy.”
She longed for a solid kick to his ghostly groin.
From the room came Lenna’s muffled voice: “Hi sister. I have a very long and very hard task at hand. Care to talk after our post-ceremonial fuck?” Then blessed silence, no doubt sound-proofed with her power.
Ayla stayed rooted to the spot, emotions colliding.
Disappointment for not having finished talking to Nina now that she had found the ovaries Raoul had been mentioning so much, as if he owned a pair himself.
Frustration at him not shutting the fuck up for a minute, bored in his slumber-death he could only annoy and tease her. She had grown so accustomed to his voice and his presence that it was almost like having a brother, even if she would never, ever, admit that to him.
Happiness for Lenna somehow having regained Jake back, and for them to be—married? It was the most surreal shit she had heard of in a while.
And above it all,anticipation.
For the cure Indianna was about to find, that would save Nina, most importantly and urgently, and then herself as well. At thispoint, it was the only hope for a shield between Nina and the ink’s relentless spread.
And whatever the reasons for the succession of recent panomquakes were, stronger and more violent than ever before.
For the next, last step. Because if Lenna had returned with Jake, then the East piece of the Queen’s heart was already theirs.
Which meant that their last task was the most dangerous of all.
