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“Stop,” Leaf barked. “Listen—” He scoured the spectators for the dark-haired male dancer and found him two steps away. He pulled the frightened male onto the dance floor.
“Niles is Nova’s twin brother,” he said gravely, hoping the Prime remembered his original name. He couldn’t come out and say Nero without risking chaos.
Recognition flashed in the Prime’s sad eyes. She cocked her head, eyes darting between Nova and the dancer. “You’re confused.”
“We need to talk.” Leaf lowered his tone and slowly approached. “Nova has much to share about her twin... remember? It’s better if we return to the Order.”
He implored her with his eyes.
More confusion and denial flashed over her face. More shaking of her head, white ringlets bouncing. Leaf’s heart pounded with premonition. That ache in his chest grew tighter by the second. Something dangerous was approaching. The night looked clear. The owl shifters were relatively harmless. Only Storm seemed capable of attempting damage, but Leaf had bested him with a few punches. Nothing here should make him feel like danger was coming.
Nothing except the agony growing in his chest. He rubbed at the most acute spot, thinking he’d somehow been stabbed, but nothing was there.
An ear-piercing screech rent the night. One moment, the Prime stood on the edge of the bough, facing them. The next, tentacles wrapped around her body, face, and wings and sucked her into the night… just like the dancers had performed with her daughter.
Leaf ran forward, skidding at the edge. A receding blob of white faded into the darkness, high above their heads.
He yelled, “She might be alive!”
But whether the Prime heard him was a mystery. Whether she survived what Maebh had planned was another.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Nova tucked her feet beneath her bottom and curled into a plush armchair by Leaf’s bedroom window. They’d arrived in the night by a portal. Leaf quickly introduced the other residents, then spirited her away to his room while he gathered the council at the temple. He asked if she wanted to come, but she wanted to prepare herself before they revealed the truth about Niles, so she feigned exhaustion and asked to stay.
It was early morning now. The sun shone through the leaves outside, creating a dappled shadow on the windowsill. She could hear them talking in the hallway, wondering if they should come in and check on her. Eventually, they went away.
As team leader for the Guardian Cadre of Twelve, Leaf’s quarters were the biggest. His suite included a bathroom, a walk-in robe, a drawing room, and a bedroom with a king-sized bed covered in dreamy pillows and soft furs. She liked the smell of his rooms—something like leather, steel, sunshine, cut lawn, and a hint of salty ocean. It all came together in a blend of Jace and Leaf, two lives as one.
She glanced down at the leather-bound journal in her hands. Before he left, Leaf had piled a collection of them on the bedside table so she could read Jace’s private words. He wanted to give her time alone, said he’d skipped most of the passages about her because it hadn’t appealed to him, and that he was glad he did.
He realized he didn’t want someone else’s memories of her clouding his mind. He wanted to make new ones, to learn about her through first-hand experience.
Nova stopped reading after the first entry. Jace’s heartache was too much to bear. But after staring outside for hours, she’d eventually tried to skip ahead to read entries further into the future. But then she found his tone had changed. He wrote about her as if she was some goddess—had turned her into a perfect fantasy without flaws.
Somehow, that made it more difficult to read.
The dancing leaves outside were much prettier to watch. It reminded her of when she’d been lying beneath a tree, staring up at the leaves while Jace and Niles were on either side of her. They might have been in middle grade—because Jace grumbled about his parents wanting to send him to boarding school now that their business had been doing so well. Niles said it would be better than the dump they lived in. Nova told them both to shut up and watch the leaves.
* * *
“Nova.”
She groaned. “I’m sleeping.”
“I’m going to carry you to the bed.”
Her eyes popped open. Leaf’s handsome, concerned face hovered before hers. She smiled and touched his jaw but noticed the sun had set outside.
“I slept all day?” she moaned.
“I checked on you a few times, but yes.” His brows lowered as he straightened to his full towering height, leaving her seated now she was awake. He looked delectable in his leather uniform and brooding expression. He jerked his chin toward the bed. “You should have slept there.”
“I’m fine.” She stretched her arms, popping her chest, and yawned.
A flash of desire caused heat to curl through her lower belly. It took her a moment to realize the emotion wasn’t her own. She turned her glowing, marked hand to inspect the pattern. It was so strange—the markings were like a living tattoo inside her skin. And through that sparkling bond, she’d felt Leaf’s emotional flare. When he’d left, Nova had reached for something that smelled like him. She wore the shirt she’d stolen from his closet. It was loose, white, and stopped at her thighs.
He strode to the bedside table and lit a candle, grumbling about not trusting tainted manabeeze in jars. Nova swiveled in the armchair, rested her elbow on the backrest, and enjoyed staring at him. Maybe it was the remnants of sleep or the warm and fuzzy feeling his shirt gave her, but she felt safe and content when he was with her. She felt like she was in the right place with the right person, even with all the confusion surrounding them.
