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Rose shook her head, brushing her away, and held onto the doorframe. “You will not do this, Willow, do you hear me?”

“It’s okay, Roe—”

“No, it’s not,” she said, her voice losing some of its strength. She gripped the doorframe tighter. “You always said you didn’t believe in love, but it exists, and I think you’ve recently worked that out for yourself. You’re in love with Warrick.”

I took a step forward. “Roe, please…”

She shook her head. “I’ll never get that. I know that now, I’ve resigned myself to it, but I won’t let you throw away your chance at happiness on some…wild-goose chase.”

“You don’t know that,” Iris said. “Whitlock is loaded. He can help.”

“I said no.” Then her face softened, because this was Rose, the kind one, the gentle one, and being assertive like this didn’t come easy to her. But when she looked at all of us, what I saw in her eyes had my heart constricting in my chest. “I’m tired,” she whispered. “I’m so…very tired. I’ve been living like this, in limbo, in pain, weak, for so long. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Roe,” Else choked. “Honey, we won’t let you give up.”

“I’m not giving up, Else. But I’ve had time to come to terms with it. There is no cure for this. We’ve been searching most of my life. No amount of money”—she looked squarely at me—“no sacrifice, will change that.”

Mom rushed to her, and Rose let her help her to a chair.

“You love me, and I love you too. So much. And I’m so…so angry that I won’t be here to see all the good things you have coming…but I’ve accepted it.” Then she took her knife from the pocket of her robe. “That’s why I need you to swear you won’t do this, Wills. I want a blood oath that you will stop this now. I want one from all of you. I can’t rest until you do.”

I shook my head. “Roe, no, I can’t…”

“You will,” she said and looked at Mom. “You know I’m right. Don’t let her do this.”

Mom closed her eyes, and when she opened them, tears streaked down her face. The truth, the stark, awful truth we’d been denying with everything we had, was right there. Rose was dying, and there was nothing any of us could do to stop it.

“Do it,” Mom said to me.

“No,” Mags said, tears running down her face.

Rose took her hand. “It’s going to be okay, Mags, I promise.” Then she cut herself.

And with tears running down our faces, we all did the same. We swore we wouldn’t sacrifice ourselves to find a cure that we all knew deep down didn’t exist.

Then Mom helped Rose back upstairs.

Else passed around the healing balm and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Go on, go to your hound.”

“He doesn’t want to see me.”

“Of course he does,” she said and walked out.

I had to get out of the house, but not to go to Warrick. I was pretty sure he’d tell me to get lost if I went to the clubhouse tonight. Instead, I went searching for Ren. I drove around for hours, searching all his old haunts, like I had many times since he was taken from me. His favorite places to go, to eat, to party, but there was no sign of him, and no one had seen him.

My stomach was in knots, and my heart hurt, and when it was finally time to head for home, I knew that wasn’t where I was going. I’d been lying to myself.

Going to Warrick was a terrible idea. I should stay away. All the reasons we couldn’t be together were still there. But I needed him. I wanted him so badly I shook.

He’ll probably refuse to see you.

Probably, but I had to try.

* * *

The gates of the hellhound clubhouse were closed when I arrived, but they’d opened the bar. Light and music spilled out, lots of cars out front. I guess now that all the hounds had been inked with Else’s runes, there was no reason to keep the place shut anymore.

I grabbed my phone and shoved it in my pocket. Clayton had been disappointed when I called him on the way here and told him I’d changed my mind, there’d been no missing it. But he’d taken it better than I’d expected. Thank the mother for that, I couldn’t handle another confrontation tonight.