Hoshiko landed nearby, and we ran barefoot to him. He lowered himself to make our climb easier, his orange scales glistening beneath the moon’s light.
With Finley in front, she leaned against Hoshiko’s neck while I sat far enough back that we didn’t touch. The distance between us was a thin, unbearable line. Close enough to feel her warmth, too far to claim it.
My fingers twitched against my thigh, aching to reach for her. Just a whisper of contact. Something. Anything to convince me we hadn’t shattered completely.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I let the space between us swallow me whole.
We crossed through the tear in silence.
The moment Hoshiko touched the ground of her front yard, Finley jumped off his back and sprinted toward her home. My feet hit the ground a few beats after, my chest aching for far too many reasons.
Inside, the house was dark. It still carried the life she and Etienne brought to it, but it felt fractured somehow.
I followed Finley through a short hallway, her feet slapping against the wooden floor as she raced into a bedroom.
Etienne sat huddled in the corner, knees to his chest, fingers tangled in his hair as if he could hold himself together by force. His breaths came in broken gasps, chest heaving around lungs that seemed to cave in on him. As though something inside him had shattered and he was choking on the broken pieces. His eyes were unfocused, glassy, and wild.
Finley didn’t hesitate. She sank to her knees so fast that the floor groaned at the impact.
“Etienne.” She breathed out his name, her voice trembling at the edges but steady at its core. She reached for him carefully, not touching him, but there.
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t look at anything. His nails dug into his scalp, and a strangled sound tore from him. Too quiet to be a scream, too broken to be a breath.
I froze at the doorway. My hands flexed uselessly at my sides with the urge to do something, anything, clawing at my chest. But panic like this didn’t bend to force. It needed something softer. Something Finley seemed to understand with the quiet way she tended to him.
Finley whispered his name again, and this time, her voice cracked from her love for him that spread through every syllable. It came out as a warm sound I hadn’t heard from her in what felt like forever.
Gods, how long would this day last?
I felt cheated somehow. First, her betrayal. Then watching . . . again, how she would forever love another male.
Was this how it would be for us? One event creating an incurable chasm?
“I get to choose. I get to choose how I live my life.
“All this time, I’ve been worried you’d regret binding your magic to our bond.”Her words had already begun shattering what was left of my battered heart, but then she uttered the final blow.“But it’s me who regrets it.”
How could we go forward from that?
I leaned against the doorframe, the weight pinning my shoulders. All I could do was be there. Steady and quiet and ready if she and Etienne needed me.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
FINLEY
Etienne’s breathcame in rapid bursts, his body curled tight like he was trying to disappear into himself.
For a few beats, I couldn’t breathe either.
The sight of him like this, shaking and gasping and alone, crashed through my veins.
How many nights had he fought this without me there to pull him back? How many nights had I forgotten him while lost in Brenton?
But my guilt wouldn’t help. Not him and not me.
