And then Aurora had burst in, catching us naked and offering mortified apologies while we scrambled for clothes, with news that Parker was being moved. Everything had spiraled from there: the rescue, the public confrontation, the conspiracy exposure.
I’d spent the rest of the month knowing my cousin had seen exactly how thoroughly I’d lost control. She’d been carefully not mentioning it, which somehow made it worse.
Parker had disappeared within hours of her rescue through the silver bell to Levon’s library. She’d apparently been living there ever since, recovering from what Alstone had done to her while working with Levon to track the Lightfords through vampire networks my father’s emergency council couldn’t access.
Smart, actually. Twenty years she’d spent gathering evidence and building contacts. Now she was using all of it.
Still, the thought of her living with a vampire—sharing space with one, trusting one, probably loving one—made my skin crawl reflexively. Eighteen years of training didn’t disappear just because I’d learned the war was manufactured.
Most clans had stopped fighting the moment the council conspiracy went public. But knowing it was fake didn’t make my mother less dead. Didn’t make the years of hatred suddenly disappear.
My mother had been trying to do the same thing Parker was: make vampire allies, share intelligence, build toward peace. She’d had died for it. The thought sat in my chest like an ember I didn’t know what to do with.
Not all vampires. I knew that now. Intellectually.
And the master’s vampires? Those were still out there, proving that even if the war was fabricated, the threat was real enough.
Only Parker was doing it with her vampire lover. Still, I had no room to judge anyone’s complicated relationship situation.
But my night together with Marigold had meant something. I’d been certain of it. What we’d shared felt distinct from what she had with Keane and Elio—not better, just different. Mine.
I’d told myself that was enough. That being the one she came to when she found Keane corrupted—the one who helped her figure out how to save him, who gave her honesty when Elio retreated behind his masks and Keane was too broken to be anyone’s anchor—meant I had a place that held.
But that night, for the first time, I’d been more than just steady. I’d been wanted—not for what I could do or how I could help, but for me.
I’d tried to convince myself it would work, that I could share her. I could be mature about the whole fucked-up situation.
But I’d been lying.
After everything settled, being her rock wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to be her choice. Not her support system—her lover. Not the one she relied on but the one she wanted.
And I had no idea how to ask for that without sounding like I was demanding she choose me over them. Because I was.
Then she’d left.
And she’d hugged Keane goodbye at the portal. Kissed Elio on the cheek. Smiled at me with warmth but also… uncertainty. Like she wasn’t sure what we were now. Like maybe what had happened between us was just another complication in an already complicated situation.
I’d spent the first week convincing myself it didn’t matter. That what we’d shared was real, that she’d come back and we’d figure it out together. That the sex had meant something more than just physical release.
The second week, doubt had crept in. Had she even thought about me? Had she gone home to mundane Albany and realized how much simpler life was without magical politics and possessive heirs?
The third week turned to jealousy. I imagined her talking to Keane and laughing with Elio over video calls, choosing them even from a distance while I stayed behind burning holes in furniture.
By the fourth week, I’d stopped lying to myself.
Because it wasn’t fine. She’d been mine that night—completely, absolutely mine. For those few hours, I hadn’t had to share, hadn’t had to be mature about it. She was just mine.
And then she’d walked away and spent a month probably not thinking about me at all while I burned holes in everything I touched.
Sharing her wasn’t noble. It was erasure. Being one of three meant being optional.
And I was not optional.
The portal signature rippled through the building—Keane’s magic, unmistakable.
My stomach clenched. They were here. She was here.
In a few minutes, she’d walk through that door, and I’d have to face her. Face the fact that I’d spent the last month building this up in my head into something it probably wasn’t.
