Rose straightened and moved back to the table. She turned the page of the ancient book, her finger tracing symbols I couldn’t read. “It’s going to take at least a couple of hours for meto prepare the spell.” She looked up and gave me a small smile—warm, reassuring, like she wasn’t about to summon one of the most dangerous beings in existence. “Do you want to change? I brought some extra clothes. They’re in the closet of the bedroom across from ours.”
I’d washed Rocco’s blood off my face at the houseboat, but the dress was beyond saving. Rocco’s blood. My blood. The evidence of everything that had gone wrong in the last twenty-four hours.
I looked like a nightmare. I felt like one too.
I gave her a grateful smile. “I’ll take you up on that.”
Valentin tilted his head toward the bedroom. “There’s some clothes for you too, Rocco.”
Rocco clasped my hand. His fingers were warm, solid—an anchor in the chaos. “Come on.”
I allowed him to lead me into the bedroom that was across from Valentin’s and Rose’s. I caught a glimpse of their room through the open door—a couple of suitcases on the floor, Rose’s spell components scattered across the dresser. Then Rocco pulled our door shut behind us, and the low murmur of Rose’s voice and the rustle of ancient pages faded to silence.
I exhaled. The quiet settled over me like a blanket, and I was grateful to escape that book and the madness of what we were about to do—even if only for a little while.
The room was simple. A queen bed with a blue comforter, a small dresser, clothes hanging in an open closet. Normal. Safe.
Everything we weren’t.
Suddenly we were alone.
“Rocco, Balthazar. He’s?—”
“I know what he is.” He turned to face me, still holding my hand. “But if a demon took it, he’s the one who would know where. And the only one that’s halfway on our side.”
“I’m not sure I believe it.” I looked into his deep eyes, searching for some reassurance I couldn’t find. “He… he scares me.”
The words felt childish the moment they left my mouth. I was a vampire. I’d faced down enemies, fought for my life, survived things that would have broken lesser beings. But the thought of standing before Balthazar—of being in the same room as that kind of ancient, unfathomable evil—made my knees want to buckle.
Rocco’s expression softened. He slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, pressing me against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat, steady and strong.
I should have pulled away. Every rational part of me knew that. But I was exhausted and terrified and the warmth of him felt like the only solid thing left in a world that kept crumbling beneath my feet. So I let myself have it — just for now. I'd sort out what it meant later, when we weren't running for our lives.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” he murmured against my hair. “I promise.”
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him so badly.
But Balthazar was so powerful. Even Angelo knew better than to pick that fight.
What chance did we have?
Rocco kissed me.
Softly at first—so softly it barely counted. Just the brush of his lips against mine, tentative, like he was asking a question he was terrified to hear the answer to. His mouth trembled. Or maybe that was me. I couldn't tell anymore where I ended and he began.
Then something shifted.
His hand slid to the back of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair, and the kiss deepened. The gentleness didn'tdisappear—it caught fire. His lips moved against mine with a hunger that tasted like two years of silence and loneliness and wanting. All those nights I'd lain awake, pressing my hand against the hollow ache in my chest where the bond pulled and pulled and pulled toward a man who wouldn't have me—this was the answer to every single one of them.
His hands roamed down my back, slow and deliberate, like he was memorizing the shape of me. Every place he touched came alive—sparks trailing beneath my skin, heat pooling low in my stomach, my blood singing in my veins with a sound that was purely, unmistakably him. His blood was still in me. Mine was still in him. And the bond between us—the one he'd denied, the one he'd tried to destroy—roared to life like a beast that had been starving in a cage.
I felt everything. Every wall he'd built. Every crack in those walls. The guilt he carried like chains. The loneliness that mirrored my own so perfectly it made me want to weep. And beneath all of it—buried so deep I almost missed it—something fierce and fragile and desperately, achingly tender.
He felt it too. He had to. Because a sound escaped him—raw, shattered, desperate—like something inside him had finally broken open and he didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified.
"Have faith," he whispered against my mouth. The words vibrated against my lips, warm and raw.
I pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were dark, glassy, stripped of every mask he'd ever worn. I raised my hand and pressed my palm against his cheek—rough with stubble, warm beneath my fingers, real in a way that made my throat close up.
