Rin fell back into the bed, barely feeling Lucien’s hands beneath her jaw as he counted her heartbeat. A glass of water was pressed to her lips, and she parted them, trusting whoever it was.
Her eyes cracked as the crisp liquid wet her parched tongue. Rhyden was staring at her intently as he forced her to drink.
Lucien had already done an exam on them—including himself. Whatever Sabine had used hadn’t caused any long-term, irreparable effects. It felt like trying to get over a cold—well, a terrible, hellish flu. She didn’t want to remember the feeling… Like her Soul was being forcibly ripped out of her body.
Rhyden clicked a button, and two doors opened on the wall adjacent to the bed, revealing a wide, mounted television screen. He flicked it on, the low hum of the news like white noise to Rin as she slipped her legs beneath the sheets and curled up.
"Record-breaking highs for the Solar City area. I’ll have more on the weather when we return," came the newscaster’s voice.
Rin tuned it out.
Cyrus wrapped an arm around her and held her close. His nose pressed to her still-damp hair.
Auren perched on the settee. Rin held out a hand, fingers curling as she silently asked—begged—him to come closer. She stared at his lips as he walked to the bed and settled on the edge.
Rhyden sat on the other side, the bed dipping as he stretched a leg out. "So, we have to talk."
"We do," said Rin. "About a lot."
And so they did. She talked until she couldn’t anymore, and she listened until her ears rang. Lucien told them about Jessa Nixo’s offer. Rin had barely been aware as Auren had reaped her Soul, but he told them how the Star on his cheek had flared, only cooling when he had answered the call.
She still couldn’t wrap her fevered mind around what Kit had done. She knew it just as well as she knew part of him was still in there: he had saved them all.
"I will not rest until I end her," Auren vowed quietly.
"Both of them," Cyrus interjected. "Talor Blackfall is a prick."
Rin shook her head. "The Hunter’s Guild, Blackfall Industries. My adoptive parents, President Shin. All of them will pay." She purposefully didn’t say Kit’s name. She’d save him—whatever the cost.
Violence lit up Rhyden’s face. "And I know just where to fucking start."
Auren jolted awake.The Star on his face burned hotter than ever before. It was excruciating. The pain awoke something within him. He rarely felt such an acute sensation. The incessant thrum stirred something untouched within him—a need to feel.
He sat up quickly, his scythe resting against the nightstand, pulsing with a white glow. It felt as though his flesh would melt away from his cheekbone from the growing intensity of the call. He had never felt anything like this, in all the centuries he had reaped.
He had fallen asleep in Rhyden’s bed, just as he had for the last two nights. Vesperin slept soundly, her hands tucked beneath her chin. The pillow was indented where his cheek had rested. As he stood, she reached for it with a soft, sleep-drenched sigh, bunching the silken pillowcase under her fingers as she hiked her thigh over it and held it close to her chest. She pressed her face to the end.
Auren felt his heart squeeze at the sight of her. Did she truly find such comfort in his scent?
None of them seemed to wish to part from her and sleep in one of the guest rooms, so Lucien was sleeping on the large settee, while Cyrus still got the bed. On the rare occasion Auren caught him sleeping, Rhyden usually did so on the floor, a lumpy pillow beneath his head, or nodding off while he worked at his laptop.
Now, the room was quiet in the night, and Auren could ignore the call no longer.
He tugged his cloak on, letting the white fabric settle over him as he hurriedly pulled on his gloves and shoved his feet in his boots. He did not bother with the laces. Sloppy. And veryunlike him. He usually slept in his Soul Searcher garb in case he was called in the night—death did not shy away from the darkness. It staked its claim upon Souls no matter the position of the sun or moon.
His sloppiness could only be blamed on the sluggishness of his bones, remnants of whatever Sabine Blackfall had done to them all.
He healed much quicker than they had, at the very least.
He allowed himself one look at Vesperin before he cut his scythe through the air. The glow was weaker without her touch; he was grateful, for he did not wish for the light to awaken her.
Just before he stepped through, he thought he heard Lucien, where he rested fitfully on the settee, mumble words drawn from whatever nightmares plagued him:
"Vesperin, don’t look. Don’t look. Please?—"
The words died on a whisper of air as the portal closed behind Auren, and he found himself standing somewhere high.
Wind ripped through his cloak, the roar a testament to the height he was at. It burrowed beneath his hood, threatening to push it back from his face. He held it with one gloved hand, the other still gripping his scythe.
