He leans close, voice gravel. “Then let me in. Even if it hurts.”
That very next night, I walk to the alley behind the bar. The air is damp, carrying the smell of rotten metal and oilydampness. I hear him before I see him, standing beneath a flickering lamp.
“Alaina.”
I push through the door. He’s there, watching, arms crossed, red-scaled silhouette. His eyes are soft but wary.
I swallow. “I’m sorry.”
He folds his arms. “I’m tired of waiting.”
“I know.” My voice trembles. “But I’m trying to be brave.”
He steps closer. “I’ll wait longer than you think.”
I reach for his hand. Fingers shake. “But I don’t know how much longeryouwill.”
He looks at me, wounded, hopeful. “Then tell me. Now.”
My breath falters. My tongue tangles.
I part my lips.
But nothing comes.
Troka waits. The silence stretches.
And I stand there, on the razor’s edge, too afraid to leap into truth—and too burdened to stay silent any longer.
So instead, I whisper his name.
“Troka.”
That makes him go feral the next.
CHAPTER 27
ALAINA
The bed is cold.
Not chilly. Not lived-in. Cold like a morgue slab. Cold likegone.
My fingers claw at the sheets like they might still be warm, like they might still have the imprint of his weight sunk deep into the mattress, the outline of those shoulders, that bulk, those arms I stupidly let wrap around me without a backup plan.
“Troka?” I rasp, the word catching in my throat like a dry swallow.
Nothing.
I sit up too fast and the room spins, a kaleidoscope of secondhand furniture and half-folded laundry. My chest tightens like someone’s winding wire around my ribs.No. No no no no—not again.
I swing my legs out of bed, ignoring the sting in my knee when it catches the corner of the bedside trunk. The apartment’s too quiet. The kind of quiet that’s not natural. Not for a home with a baby. Not when there’s usually hums and whirs and muttered curses in a deep alien baritone about how the repurposed bottle sterilizer smells like fried chemicals.
“Caelix?” I call out, peeking toward the bassinet in the other room. Empty. Not recently empty—fresh. Bedding smooth. Stuffed scale-toy still propped just-so. No baby.
My heart stops. Then starts again, jackhammering against my breastbone.
“Troka, where thefuckare you?!”
