Do we have a deal?
Damien’s question hung in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre—thick, choking, impossible to escape. His amber eyes caught the firelight, patient as a cat watching a mouse decide which direction to run, knowing it didn’t matter because all paths led to the same place.
This is it. This is my chance.
Damien was offering the answer I’d been clawing towards since the moment I was reborn.Edward. His location. His habits. His hiding places. Every single detail I needed to make him bleed the way he’d made me bleed, to hear him scream the way I’d screamed into pillows and gags and empty rooms that echoed with my silence.
I tasted it, the copper tang of his blood on my tongue. The salt of his fear in the air. The bitter-sweet satisfaction of watching realization dawn in his eyes as he understood—finally,finallyunderstood—that the nine-year-old girl he’d shattered and sold and rebuilt into merchandise had grown teeth sharp enough to tear out his throat.
All I have to do is risk Rowan’s life. That’s all.
Just Rowan. Just the boy I’d grown up with, shared a childhood with, had a thousand memories of. Just the boy who’d grown into a man who made me feel safe, seen, whole, and cherished. Just the man who’d died while protecting those he cared for.
And what did he do when he came back from the dead? His first impulse had been to shield me from whatever fresh hell was unfolding. Rowan was the only person in the supernatural shitshow my life hadbecome who I trusted, one of the only people who looked at me like I was actuallyworthprotecting.
But it hadn’t been enough. Jules’s death still reigned, her empty eyes now another weight of memories to the ones I bore watching Edward kill the other girls in his ownership. . . all the while knowing my time would come one day. I would never forgive the demon for what he did, but he was the one who held what I wanted.
The pressure in my chest built, squeezed, and made breathing feel like work. Jules’s body—wherever they’d taken it—probably wasn’t even cold yet. That massive pig-faced nightmare demon had only just carried her out, her arms swinging loose and head lolling back. And already Damien sat there sipping his goddamn coffee like murder was just another Friday night expense to be written off in whatever ledger demons kept.
Now he wants to gamble with another life. With Rowan’s life.
I felt the weight of Rowan’s hand wrapped around mine. His fingers were long, his grip strong enough to anchor me but loose enough that I could pull away if I wanted. He wasn’t holding me captive in his grip. He was just there. Present.Real. His hand was the only comforting thing I could grab hold of in a room that smelled of smoke, wine, and blood—the coppery aftermath of Jules’s murder. It was a scent that clung to the air like cloying perfume, sweet and organic and wrong.
I focused on Rowan’s thumb as he traced small circles on the back of my hand. The gesture was unconscious, automatic—comfort offered without thought because that’s who he was beneath all the cynicism and anger. He was someone who’d appointed himself my protector without asking. Someone who’d shadowed me and guarded me because he’d decided I was worth defending.
He was also someone who’d hidden the truth about his own rebirth while I drowned in the isolation of mine.
The thought burned through me again, acid-hot and vicious. All those weeks of feeling insane—of wondering if I was the only one walking around with two lifetimes bleeding into each other like watercolors in rain, of thinking I was losing my mind—and he’dknown. He’d been through the exact same cosmic screw-up and never said a word to me.
He knew before I told him. Daddy and Charlie told him. Of course they did. That’s why they sent him here to babysit me.Two men whom I thought I could trust with anything had shared my secret behind my back while I was still trying to figure out if I was crazy or not.
And Rowan had just. . . what? Decided I didn’t deserve to know he understood? Decided to let me suffer alone while he played cryptic bodyguard and tracked my movements like I was prey he couldn’t quite decide whether to protect or study?
How dare he?
But also—
He died for me tonight.
The image was seared into my brain like a brand—his body on the ground of that dirty alley, blood mingling with rainwater as it spread out beneath him like a blanket. The sight of it—not dripping butflowing, pulsing out with each weakening heartbeat until there was more of him on the ground than in his veins. His eyes went distant, unfocused, the way an animal’s eyes went when they stopped fighting and slipped away to wherever souls went.
Yet he’d come back.Somehow.
And now this perfectly sculpted demon, this eerily sexythingwearing human skin like a bespoke suit, wanted to send us to some mysterious Strega—whatever that was—who could supposedly extract something from Rowan’s chest or soul or whatever. . .withoutkilling him in the process.
Because demons from the stories I knew were allso highly regardedfor their honesty and concern for human welfare. Because I could totally trust that a deal with this demon wouldn’t end with Rowan bleeding out on another floor while I held his hand and felt his pulse stutter and stop again.
My throat tightened. Anger, gratitude, grief, and anxiety all coiled together into a knot I couldn’t untangle. The swirl of emotions stuck in my throat, as jagged as broken glass.
I didn’t understand half of what Rowan and Damien discussed—lighthouses and libraries and relics bound to souls—but it was obvious that Damien was offering to deliver Edward to me in exchange for our help. . . help that would endanger Rowan.
This is it. This is my chance.
Twenty-four years as Edward’s pet. Twenty-four years of learning that my body wasn’t mine, that pain was currency, that survival meant becoming whatever shape he needed that day. Dancer. Doll. Decoration.Thing. Merchandise with a pulse and wet holes.
My memories from my first life were crystal-clear and inescapable. And now I had a chance to make the man responsible for that lifetime of suffering pay. But at what cost?
I felt Rowan’s hand gently squeeze my own and looked into his pale blue eyes. He stared at me before giving me the slightest nod. I realized he’d been quietly waiting for me to answer Damien’s question, and that I’d frozen while pondering.He isn’t rushing me, I realized. It wasn’t an impatient squeeze.He is reassuring me that he’s here. That he'll support whatever choice I make.
