Page 82

I immediately loosened my jaw.

Adrian Azar. I’d learned that was his full name in the meeting.

It seemed I would be getting to know Commander Azar a lot better over the next few days.

“I’ll see you soon,” Leo whispered, leading me outside and away from everyone so he could say his goodbyes.

He kissed the top of my head. “You can do this. Your soul was made for this.”

“And if I fail?” My earlier confidence waning.

“You won’t.” He touched my cheek gently. “The Earth would never turn her back on a woman like you.” He pressed a firm kiss to my lips, pulling away before I could slip my tongue onto his. “Go. Before I change my mind and decide killing everyone is the better option.”

He turned me toward Adrian, walking me until my feet were moving on their own.

He was so confident that Two wouldn’t kill me where I stood once I entered Delirium.

I turned back to tell him it was a mistake to put his faith in me.

But he was already gone.

Obscured by the night sky.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

LEO

Two questions had my mind spinning: How was it possible Deks had the power to destroy portals? And how was I going to survive the absence of Bryn?

It hadn’t even been a full day, and I’d thought about her seven different times.

To be separated like this, after finally getting her back, was excruciating.

The only thing that kept me sane was knowing she was being looked after by the one person I trusted more than anyone else in the worlds.

Adrian would protect her. And when he delivered her to Earth Two’s gates for her trials, he wouldn’t be perceived as a threat, his fire magic tame.

Who knew what the Earth would think of me and my power that continued to grow from when I’d entered Delirium myself, if I was the one standing by Bryn’s side before her tests began.

Raphael and Callum had been right—Bryn must enter Delirium on her own, without any influence from another, if she had any chance of having her magic fully restored.

She needed to gain Two’s trust. Show the Earth she was worthy of the magnitude her magic had stretched before.

Bryn needed me here, so she could focus there.

But I hadn’t realized the distance would be so fucking hard.

Leo! she had shouted, my name a prayer on her tongue as her release had crashed through her.

It was the sound of her voice, and the feel of my fingers against her core, that had me gripping myself in the large clawfoot tub of my washroom, wishing it were her tightness gripping me beneath the water instead of my hand.

Three days.

I could endure this.

I’d waited twenty-six years for her before.

I gripped myself harder, my strokes growing faster as I neared completion.