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I feel him swell inside me, and with a guttural moan, he thrusts deep one last time, his release hot and powerful.

He holds me tight against him, our bodies trembling with the intensity of it all.

I collapse onto Nico’s slick chest, feeling the steady beating of his heart against my ear.

It’s a soothing rhythm.

His lips press a tender kiss to the top of my head before he slides his head down so our foreheads are pressed together. Our breaths mingle as we try to come down from what was honestly the best sex of my life.

His hand is on my jaw, thumb moving very softly along my cheekbone. My mouth feels raw. My skin is still on fire everywhere he touched me, which is most places. Nico is looking at me with such tenderness on his face and that tenderness is what breaks me.

My eyes sting with tears. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done. Shame I can work with. Shame I know how to handle.

This is grief.

Because I just did something I cannot take back. I crossed a line I have built my whole professional identity on the correct side of. I heal people.

I save the ones nobody else can save.

I do it every single day.

And this man—this man takes lives.

He takes children.

He took me.

And I just wrapped my legs around him and let him have me like a wanton whore.

Everything just got so much worse. Everything.

Nico pulls back, his gaze heavy. He doesn’t look sad or disappointed. He looks, well, I don’t even know.

“Katerina —” he starts to say but I wave my hand.

“Don’t,” I manage to get out, breathing through my nose to prevent myself from crying. “Don’t talk to me.”

I shove him away and leap off the counter.

My legs almost don’t hold my weight, but I manage to not stumble too badly.

I robotically find my clothes and quickly pull them on, smoothing my shirt with hands that don’t feel like mine. He reaches for my elbow, and I yank it away like his hand is a live wire.

“I said don’t,” I snarl, but the heat of my words is betrayed by the quaking in my voice. Tears burn at the corner of my eyes. “Don’t say anything. Please. Please don’t say anything to me right now.”

Nico looks impassive, and I can’t bring myself to try and interpret that look. I’ve probably hurt him, but I don’t care. He hurt me by taking Seraphina. By manipulating me to be here.

I make myself walk, because running would mean admitting how badly I need to get out of this room and I do not want him to know how badly he’s rattled me.

Somehow I get to the stairs and then somehow my door is there and I’m on the other side of it. I don’t remember either of those things actually happening.

I make it to the edge of the bed before my legs give out, and I collapse on the rug as if a string has been cut.

My shoulders heave with sobs and I cover my face.

This isn’t the controlled, careful crying I sometimes allow myself in an on-call room after a bad night, but the ugly silent whole-body kind, the kind that comes from somewhere much deeper.

Tonight I just slept with the man who took Seraphina. Tonight I slept with a man who kills people for fun while I do my very best to keep them alive.