What did Sebastian want with my ancestors if he already knew I was the prophesied witch? Was it just my sisters he was after, so he could have the complete set?
I looked around at the hotel room, at Ronan, at the hounds pacing their own circles at the end of the bed. How had all of this come to be?
So many questions. So many impossible answers. And they just kept on coming, one leading to another to the next, each one more thorny than the last.
Destiny was cruel. That was the only answer. The only one I kept running up against, time and again.
Liam had once told me that destiny and choice were not mutually exclusive.“But there are things about your path you must learn, must accept, no matter how difficult.”I wondered now if this was what he’d meant. The Silversbane legacy. Or my enslavement to Sebastian. Or something else entirely—something we’d yet to encounter.
How much of my current predicament had he already seen as one of his infinite possibilities? And if possibilities were in fact infinite, didn’t it stand to reason that there were other paths in this? Other choices we just yet hadn’t considered?
I pressed my fingertips to my temples, massaging my head. When this was all over, I’d eat and cry myself into a week-long coma with a few gallons of ice cream and a pan of Emilio’s brownies, all of it topped off with a bottle of Darius’s fancy wine. But for now, we had to keep moving.
“So Sebastian’s letting you go?” Ronan asked. “Just like that?”
“For now.”
“But how did that even happen? He doesn’t—”
I held up my hand. “Ronan, it’s a really long story, and I’ll tell you all about it once we’re on the plane. Okay? Right now, I just want to focus on getting the hell out of this city.”
“We can’t leave yet,” Ronan said. “We need to find a safer situation for Darius. I’m not familiar with the vampire families in town, and we can’t just leave him at Inferno. I don’t trust Sebastian to—”
“Wait,what?” I spun on my heel to face him, my eyes wide. “Leave him at Inferno? Are you kidding me? We’re not leaving him anywhere. We’reallgoing back to the Cape. Together.”
“Gray, he’s not…” Ronan shoved a hand through his hair and blew out a frustrated breath. “He doesn’t even know he’s part of us. All he knows now is the taste of blood, and the fact that he’s not getting it. It’s driving him mad. Taking him back to the Cape in this state—likely against his will—is beyond dangerous. It’s flat-out stupid.”
“Then we’ll take precautions. We’re not splitting up again, Ronan. The three of us need to get back to the Cape, back to Emilio. Then we need to help Asher.”
Ronan crossed the room, reaching for my shoulders but stopping just short. I flinched away from him anyway.
He didn’t even bother hiding the pain in his eyes.
“You think Iwantto leave him?” he snapped, making Sunshine yelp. “You think I wanted any of this to happen?”
I didn’t need to answer that. Of course he didn’t want this to happen. But itdidhappen.
I fell back onto the bed. My heart broke as much for Ronan as it did for me. Deep down I knew the truth, no matter what Sebastian wanted me to believe.
Ronan loved me. And it was killing him that he couldn’t do anything about it. Ronan cared a great deal for Darius, too, and now he’d lost a friend. A brother.
“I’m sorry, Gray,” Ronan said now, sitting next to me on the bed. “I’m so, so fucking sorry.”
“Don’t.” I sat up next to him, careful not to get too close. “Look. I know that you’re not allowed to love me, and Darius can’t remember that he ever did. I know that Asher is still trapped inside that hellhole. And Emilio is probably going out of his mind trying to solve this case, and I have no idea how to help him once we get back.” I turned to look into his eyes, and when I saw the love there, blazing as it always had, I took a risk, brushing my hand through the hair falling across his forehead. There was a second where it didn’t hurt, didn’t burn, but then the smoke came, and I pulled back.
In a much softer voice, I said, “But Idoknow that we all belong together. No matter what the circumstances. We’re stronger together, Ronan. You know it. We need to get back there.”
He watched me a moment longer, then finally nodded. “I know. You’re right. I know.”
“I don’t want to split up again. Not if we can help it. The five of us are… we’re a family, Ronan. No one can take that away from us. Not even Sebastian.”
“And Liam?” he asked. “Where does he fit into all this?”
I forced a casual shrug, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “I don’t know yet. Liam and I… We have a few things to figure out.”
“It seemed like you were figuring things out pretty well in the Shadowrealm. I saw the way you were looking at each other.” He shrugged, all of this said without jealousy. Without disapproval.
Ronan had always made it clear that he wanted me to be happy—that he understood there was room in the human heart for the love of more than just one other being, and he’d never been jealous. Not of Darius, with whom he’d happily shared me. Not of Asher. Not with Emilio, who was just beginning to find his way into my heart. Ronan considered them all brothers. They all felt that way about each other.
