Page 92 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I felt the egg bond tug, slight and uneasy, as if the baby sensed Cal moving away. The pressure in my ribs spiked for a heartbeat, then steadied when I pushed warmth through the connection again.

Cal’s gaze slid to me, and something softened there. Concern. A question he did not ask out loud.

“I will be fine,” I said before he could.

He did not look convinced. He stepped closer anyway, close enough that I could smell smoke and cold stone. He reached out as if to touch my shoulder, then stopped, fingers hovering in a restrained gesture that somehow felt more intimate than contact.

“Do not push yourself,” he said quietly.

“I am not planning to,” I replied.

He gave me a look that said he had heard that line before and it always ended poorly.

Then he turned, wings unfolding with a heavy snap, and launched into the sky.

His silhouette cut across the hospital lights and disappeared into the dark, heading toward Scorchwood.

Nishi watched him go, then turned back to us. Her expression was composed, but fatigue sat at the edges of her eyes.

“We are done here for the moment,” she said. “Delia is finishing memory work. Spencer has vampires reinforcing the entrance. Victor is keeping the streets from collapsing.”

Tegan exhaled hard. “And Dagna moved the relic. Which means we are back to chasing a ghost.”

Greyson rubbed his forehead with one hand, the other still glowing from holding the portal. “Not a ghost. A witch with too many resources.”

Eve’s eyes were bright with fury even now. She stared into the space where the shield had been thickest as if she could burn it away through spite. “I hurt her.”

Faith nodded once, grim satisfaction. “Good.”

Eve’s jaw tightened. “Not enough.”

“We will get her,” Nishi said. “But not by standing in a hospital parking lot. We need to regroup, eat, and rest.”

Rest sounded like a fantasy. My body was vibrating with exhaustion. The egg bond kept pulling at my ribs like a reminder that I could not simply collapse. Not until the baby hatched. Not until the calling stopped.

Greyson looked at me. “You need food. Actual food. Not energy drinks and power bars.”

Faith snorted. “We run on sarcasm. It’s a nutrient.”

“I will finish up here, go get something to eat,” Greyson said flatly.

Eve finally looked at me, really looked, and her expression shifted. Not soft, exactly. But less intense. “He is right.”

I was too tired to argue. “Okay.”

We left the hospital perimeter to Spencer and Delia, then piled back into the SUV. The city outside the windows had a different feel now. Not calmer. Just slower. The night had burned through most of its adrenaline, leaving behind an exhausted hush.

It would be dawn soon.

I could feel it in the air, that thinning of dark. The kind of shift that made the world look paler even before the sun showed up.

We stopped at a diner on the edge of town, one of those places that survived on coffee, grease, and the fact that there were always people awake at ungodly hours. The sign buzzed. The parking lot had two trucks and a sedan that looked like it had seen several decades of poor decisions.

Inside, it smelled like bacon and old fryer oil and something sweet that might have been pancakes. The booths were vinyl. The lighting was too bright. The waitress looked tired enough to have accepted the apocalypse as routine.

Faith slid into a booth across from me, stretching her legs out under the table like she owned the place. Nishi took the seat beside her, posture upright even in a diner booth because she did not understand the concept of slumping. Eve and Tegan sat at the next booth, close enough to talk without yelling.

The waitress appeared with menus.