“Cal and I are coming back.” Dahlia’s voice cut through from the tablet screen, brooking no argument. Behind her, Cal nodded—a single, decisive motion. “Don’t argue. We’re already booking flights. We’ve come back once. We can do it again. Our family is in Haven Shores, and we’re not letting some void parasite eat our bonds because we were too stubborn to come home.”
Lunaria stared at them—at these women she’d known for barely a month, who were already planning to fight an ancient evil because she’d asked them to. Because Haven Shores was their home. Because they’d chosen each other, built a prize worth protecting, and refused to let anything take it away.
Years of handling everything alone.
And now...
“I don’t—” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, tried again. “I didn’t expect this.”
“What did you expect?” Junie’s hand was still locked around hers. “That we’d run? That we’d pack up and leave town before the scary void thing showed up?” She snorted. “Luna. We fought a Devourer. We survived a siren attack. Cassia’s mated to an eight-hundred-year-old dragon, and Avine lives with a wolf alpha who can bench-press a car. A little interdimensional entity isn’t going to scare us off.”
“It should.” Lunaria looked around the room, at each of their faces. “This thing has been feeding for over a century. It’s stronger than anything we’ve faced. If it crosses over fully?—”
“Then we stop it before it does.” Avine’s voice was calm, certain. “That’s what you’re building the weapon for, right? The orrery in the gardens. Deia’s final project.”
“Yes, but?—”
“Then we help you finish it. We show up, we fight, and we win.” Avine reached across the coffee table and took Lunaria’s free hand. “You came to Haven Shores expecting to leave. We’re not going to let you.”
The words hit her somewhere deep—somewhere she’d tried very hard to keep protected.
“There’s more.” She tucked her hands against her chest. “Something I haven’t told anyone.”
The room went quiet. Waiting.
Then Narla moved—standing from the window seat, crossing to her bag, retrieving an object that glinted in the fairy-light glow.
A candle. One of her mate-revealing candles, the same kind that had caused so much chaos and heartache and eventual happiness across Haven Shores.
“When I light a candle,” Narla said quietly, “I see Wyatt. Every time. The flame shows me my fated mate.” She held the candle out. “What do you see when you light one?”
Lunaria’s stomach dropped. “I haven’t tried. I’ve been avoiding?—”
“Try now.” Narla pressed the candle into her hands. “Let’s see what the truth shows you.”
TWENTY-NINE
LUNARIA
The candle was heavier than it looked.
Not physically—it was just wax and wick, the same as any other. But holding it, feeling the magic woven into its core, Lunaria understood why these things had changed Haven Shores so profoundly. This wasn’t a simple flame. This was a revelation. Exposure. The truth lay bare whether you wanted to see it or not.
Her hands shook as she set the candle on the coffee table.
“You don’t have to do this,” Junie said. “If you’re not ready?—”
“I need to know,” she said. Avine handed her a box of matches. “Either the candle shows me nothing, and I know I’m as broken as I’ve always feared. Or it shows me something, and I have to face whatever that means.”
She struck the match.
The flame caught immediately—too fast, too eager, like it had been waiting for her. She touched it to the wick and watched the candle flare to life.
For a moment, there was nothing. Just ordinary flame, orange and yellow, dancing in the still air of Avine’s suite.
Then the colors shifted.
Violet bloomed at the heart of the flame—the unmistakable signature of the mating surge, that supernatural phenomenon that had been creating bonds across Haven Shores for the past two years. Gold threaded through the violet, warm and rich, weaving patterns that made Lunaria’s breath catch.
