Then longing.
Not his.Mine.
Balthazar’s memory crashed into me. That same energy—the ache, the madness, the obsession—poured from the dagger and clawed through my heart. My grief. My hunger. My unbearable yearning.
I reached for Jack.
I kissed him.
Not like a wife. Not like a researcher. But with the hunger of a woman who had lost everything and just found the key to returning it. I kissed him like I used to kiss Balthazar—feverishly, wildly, like the world might end if we stopped.
We fell to the ground, the dagger between us, pulsing like a second heart.
Hands. Mouths. Flesh. We moved with desperate grace, tangled in cold stone and dying light. It was Jack’s body beneath me, but my soul reached for someone else—someone darker, someone gone. Each thrust and gasp was an echo of a man who had ruined me.
For a moment, it felt like Balthazar was here, inside me—using Jack’s flesh as a vessel, reclaiming what was his.
And I let him.
When we finally reached our climax, the world around us seemed to shudder. The force of it felt cosmic, like the ground, the air, the sky itself had cracked open to bear witness. When it was over, we lay tangled and panting, the dagger nestled between our bare bodies, still gleaming in the fading light like a god’s eye left open.
Jack murmured sweet nothings into my ear, his hand trailing down my sweat-slicked skin. “That was beautiful,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen this side of you.”
“Yes,” I said, the word thick and strangled in my throat. “It’s been locked away for a long time.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears slipped down my cheeks unnoticed. My chest ached with the unbearable stretch between twoworlds—one I had chosen, and one I had lost. I had set out to find the blades alone, to forge a path without Balthazar. And yet… his name still echoed in every hollow space inside me. I still burned for him. Not Jack.NeverJack.
Jack kissed the curve of my neck and drew his tongue up to my jaw. “Let’s set this beast free,” he said huskily. “I want more ofthis.”
I felt him hardening against my thigh again, eager, needy. His usual retreat into modesty had vanished. But I couldn’t do it. Not again. Not when I poured out the last of my illusions moments ago. Not when every nerve in me screamed for someone who wasnothim.
“We will,” I lied gently, brushing my hand down his arm. “Just… not now. Let’s bring the dagger back to camp. We need to examine it.”
Disappointment flashed across his face. He turned away and rose stiffly, straightening his clothes in silence. When he offered me his hand, I hesitated for a breath too long. That, too, didn’t go unnoticed.
Jack was slipping into one of his moods again—that brooding, heavy silence blanketed the room. It always suffocated everything around it. Especially me.
“Don’t you see, darling?” I said quickly, forcing the kind of brightness I knew he needed. “Our names will be immortalized in science. You’ll finally prove everything you’ve worked for.”
But even as I spoke, my optimism withered beneath a strange, coiling dread. It wrapped around my heart like a python, tightening with every breath. Something had changed when I touched that dagger. I couldn’t name or see it, but I felt it. A shift in the air. A fracture in fate. It was as if this moment had torn something open that would never be closed again.
Jack’s face lit up, exactly as I’d hoped. “Do you think so?”
“Yes!” I clasped his hand. “You’ll finally be lauded instead of scorned. You’ll make a contribution that changes everything.”
His eyes shone. “You’ve made me so happy.” He brushed his lips across my knuckles. “I love you, Alina.”
The words hung in the air, waiting for my reply.
But my mouth refused to move—lips sewn shut with somethingunseen. Jack’s gaze bore into me, searching for an answer. Seconds stretched. My pulse thundered.
“I care for you, too,” I finally said.
It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the truth either.
Because what I truly cared about was power. The kind of power that pulsed inside that dagger. The sort of power that could rewrite history, reshape destinies, and reclaim everything I’d lost.
And that power was mine, not Jack’s. Not Balthazar’s. Mine.
