Page 116

Tisiphone pulled, but Eryn held fast.

“Don’t,” Ryan said, reminding the fury of her fate if she so much as blinked wrong.

“Will they be free when she dies?” Vann asked gently.

“I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t know how or why or if it even matters, but…” She softened her touch, but didn’t release. “My parents. Her sisters. Thousands of innocent people.”

“What do you want to do?”

Eryn looked at the women protecting her. Blockades to keep the fury from escaping.

They looked at each other. Equally lost. Tisiphone had taken everything from them.

“I can take them.” The weight of it… even with the fury still left in her, it was too much.

“You don’t have to. That’s a heavy burden, and she’s taken enough from you.”

“I want to. For them. For me.”

“And if it’s a need, not a want?”

“Then I’ll need you to follow through on your promise. To fulfill the vision. But at least they’ll be free from her.”

He kissed her bare shoulder. The same vision flashed through his mind on repeat. “That’s not the vision.”

“It’s not?”

His grandmother’s words twisted in his mind. His own visions precipitating into an image he’d feared too much to recognize the beauty in it. “It’s not about you dying. It’s about you becoming death. Take her power. Her soul, yours along with it, and everyone else’s. It’s the only way we can stop her from doing this to anyone else.”

“I can’t be like her. I can’t.”

“You won’t. She tried to break you at every turn, but you haven’t lost your humanity.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Either I’ll follow through on that promise… or instead of a castle, we’ll move into a little pod in Antarctica, and I’ll hope you don’t have a taste for penguin souls.”

Eryn leaned into him, her body settling with a long, gentle laugh. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Vann ached as he watched her look around the room. At the others who had lost so much. “I love you, Eryn. Do what feels right. Only you can decide. Die in peace, knowing you stopped her, or live on with her power, with the burden of carrying all those lost souls. Either way, I’m here for you, with you, whatever you decide.”

Hands bloodied, one not leaving Tisiphone, she angled toward him.

Vann kissed her cheek and nuzzled close. “Honestly though, I’m biased. I want to live a long life with you. I’m with you, no matter what.”

She kissed him with a sweet, soft kiss that he couldn’t bear to think of as a goodbye kiss.

Eryn tipped her chin up at Tisiphone.

Tisiphone shivered, empty and defeated. Had she never lost a fight? It wasn’t just the onslaught, so many souls extracted, but defeat. She’d never been on the back foot. “Share with me, and we can live forever. Lexi can live here, with us.”

Eryn braced both hands on the fury’s cheeks and stared her down. “I never asked for power or immortality. Just my sister’s life.”

Skin paling, freezing, Eryn sobbed as she finished it.

Balance. Love. Steady and patient. Vann gave her everything he could and wished to hell he could take the burden for her. Even a fraction of it.

A gasp rattled from the fury’s open mouth as she stumbled. Weak. Only a shred of her was left.