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Choosing me.

My hand slips into her hair as the kiss deepens, and the soft sound she makes against my lips sends something hot tearing through me. She presses closer, and the ground rolls beneath our feet in answer.

“Malakai.” Ezra’s warning barely reaches me.

Somewhere behind him, Rhett laughs.

I couldn’t give less of a fuck about either of them.

Sage finally breaks the kiss, though she doesn’t go far, her forehead rests against mine while we catch our breath.

“So,” She whispers.

I wait.

Her mouth curves. “Immortal corn farmer?”

A laugh escapes me, brushing against her lips.

She smiles.

And then the Earth screams.

She tears away from me. The sound doesn’t come from a person or one of the things buried in the field.

It comes from beneath us.

A low, grinding shriek rips through the ground, deep enough that I feel it in my bones. Every bonfire across the field explodes upward at once, flames roaring toward the sky.

The crowd cheers.

Sage doesn’t.

She stares at me, the smile gone from her face.

Then I see the blood. A thin line slowly slips from her nose.

Fuck.

The Revel has taken enough.

Blood comes next.

I reach for her, to wipe it away with my thumb before it can fall.

Too late.

A single drop slips past me. It hits the dirt and the entire farm goes still. The music dies midbeat. The bonfires collapse. Hundreds of voices vanish so abruptly that the silence feels violent.

Sage looks down… so do I.

Her blood disappears into the Earth the instant it touches.

Behind me, Ezra whispers “No.”

The ground erupts. Roots tear through the soil beneath our feet, not one or two but hundreds of them, ripping upward through the field as the Earth splits open.

This time, nobody cheers.