She was supposed to be leaving for Girls’ Night. Avine had called an emergency gathering at the Siren’s Rest, and Lunaria had agreed because she needed to tell them everything. The curse. The Hollow King. The Convergence racing toward them with unstoppable momentum.
But standing here, watching him sleep, she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into that bed and pretend the outside world didn’t exist.
She crossed to the bed, bent down, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He stirred, one hand reaching for her automatically.
“Where are you going?” His voice was rough with sleep, and something low in her belly tightened at the sound.
“Avine’s. Girls’ Night.” She brushed a curl of dark hair back from his face. “I need to tell them what we found.”
His eyes opened fully, amber and alert despite the exhaustion still clinging to him. “About the Hollow King.”
“About all of it. They need to know what’s coming.”
He caught her wrist before she could pull away, tugged her down until their foreheads touched. “Be careful.”
“It’s a wine night with the girls. What’s dangerous about that?”
“You’re about to tell them that an interdimensional void entity is planning to consume every fated bond in Haven Shores.” His thumb stroked across her pulse point. “That tends to upset people.”
“I’ll bring tissues.”
He laughed—that low, surprised sound that she’d become addicted to hearing. Then he kissed her, slow and thorough, until her knees felt unsteady and she was seriously reconsidering the whole leaving thing.
“Go,” he murmured against her mouth. “Before I decide to keep you.”
“You can’t keep me.” But she kissed him again anyway, lingering, memorizing the taste of him. “I’m not a pet.”
“No.” His hand slid up her spine, possessive and warm. “You’re something far more dangerous.”
She pulled away before she lost her resolve entirely. His hand fell from her back, and she felt the absence like a physical ache—which was ridiculous. She was walking to the door, not to another continent.
This is what you were afraid of. This is why you never stayed.
But for once, the fear didn’t make her want to run. It made her want to fight.
“Rest,” she told him from the doorway. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Luna.”
She paused, looked back.
“Be careful,” he said again. And this time, she heard what he wasn’t saying—the worry underneath the words, the fearthat something might happen to her while he was stuck in bed recovering from almost dying.
“I will.”
She left before she could change her mind.
The walkto the Siren’s Rest took twenty minutes, and Lunaria spent every one of them acutely aware of the void beside her.
Now, after three days of having Hux’s warmth pressed against her, his hand in hers, his presence steady and solid andthere—the solitude felt wrong. Like a missing limb. Like a song without the harmony.
Get a grip, Reed. You’re not some lovesick teenager.
But the thing was, she kind of was. After years of careful distance, she’d let someone in. Really in—not the surface charm and easy smiles she used to keep people at arm’s length, but the messy, terrified, death-seeing truth of her. And he’d stayed anyway.
She touched her chest absently, feeling for the echo of him that seemed to linger there even when he wasn’t beside her. It wasn’t the mate bond the others described—that awareness, that constant knowledge of location. This was different. Softer. Like a candle flame in a dark room, warm but flickering.
The Siren’s Rest rose before her as she rounded the corner—Avine’s bed-and-breakfast, a converted Victorian with window boxes full of late-blooming flowers and a wraparound porch that had witnessed more supernatural drama than most government buildings. The lights in the top-floor suite were already glowing, and Lunaria could hear the faint murmur of voices drifting down through an open window.
