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I nod, my body tightening like a coiled spring, filling with heat and electricity. I’m on the cusp of an orgasm. I bite my lower lip, straining to keep it at bay. When I think I’m about to lose it, Mack releases his grip. The pressure fades. Panting, I beg him not to stop.

“Are you going to come?” he asks darkly.

“Not until you tell me to. I promise.”

He starts again. Building the rhythm, using both hands now, his own dick suffering the same painful delay in release as—every time we are close—he stops. Finally, when I can’t take it anymore, instead of stopping, he whispers, “Now.”

Before the word has even left his lips, I yell and brace my hand on his shoulder. My fingernails dig into his skin as my hot cum spills over his hand. When I look down, he’s using my cum to moisten his own dick, still holding them close, not letting me go.

Instead of fading, the fireworks inside me keep going, and going. Then Mack comes too. His creamy liquid merges with mine as he slowly, languidly, brings his fist to a stop.

We’re both breathless and flushed. Mack’s chest is sweaty, dimpled with the imprints of my fingernails, and his neck is pink. Laughing a little, he shakes his head and looks down at his hand. “Didn’t really think about how I’d clean this up,” he mutters.

“I can help you with that,” I tell him, bringing his cum-soaked hand to my lips.

Mack’s eyes widen. “Sam…”

I shake my head and run my tongue around his index finger, licking it clean. “Shhh… Nova will love this part.”

8

KOLE

I don’t know where the others are. Sam and Mack said they’d patrol the perimeter of the barrier. Luther didn’t say where he was going, and Tanner? Usually, I’d say he’s swimming, but since we got back, he’s been avoiding the water. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to feel better. He doesn’t want it to heal him or soothe him because, with Nova gone, the only thing he should feel is emptiness.

There was a time when we distracted one another when things were bad like this.

When our demons threatened to overwhelm us, he submitted to me and I let him, and it was a delicious diversion. Now, it doesn’t seem right. We’ve both thought about it; Tanner knows there’s a darkness growing inside me. He can feel it the way he always feels it. But without Nova between us, anything we could offer each other would be… not enough.

At night, my mind has been drifting back to the times we’ve spent together. Especially the three of us. My favorite memory is of chasing her through the living room at the cabin, turning her upside down, then filling her up at the same time as Tanner. I miss the expressions on her face when we’re pleasing her. I miss the way she looks at me. I miss her voice in my head. I miss her warmth and the curve of her body when it’s tucked against mine. I miss her strength, and her devilish smile, and the way she’s the only woman who’s ever made me feel confident enough to fall in love. I miss the way she both stokes and soothes me. Makes me want her but holds me back from going to the part of myself I hate.

I miss her. And I’m still praying to the stars that I was right; that she will come back. I should be the one who is standing firm but, after what I saw at The Hollow, I’m wavering and the others can see it. Only Sam seems utterly convinced, without a doubt, that he will see her again, and I hate that I can’t force myself to feel the same.

With the others out of the way, I settle myself in front of the fire Luther left burning and take a small leather pouch from my pocket. I’ve carried it since we left the colony and was hoping I’d never have to use it.

Gently, I shake its contents into my palm. Sparkling black dust. The feel of it in my hand reminds me instantly of the moment I plunged my fingers into the fountain and tried to carry Nova’s ashes with me from The Hollow. I remember them slipping from my grasp, watching them fall to the ground and disappear between the blades of grass as if they never existed.

I close my eyes and try to swallow down the feeling. The Hunger stirs in my veins. It has been gnawing at my insides ever since she disappeared, as if she was the only thing satiating me.

It would be so easy to give in and fall back to where I was all those years ago. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe this is some kind of test, and fate is waiting to see whether I am truly worthy of her.

With the thought bringing some comfort, I throw the dust into the fire and mutter the incantation that will summon my mother. Almost instantly, her face appears in the flames.

“Kole?” her voice fills the cave. I can’t tell whether she’s inside or outside. She peers at me, then her face drops. “What happened?”

“She’s gone.” I close my eyes and lower my head. My hair is loose. I tuck it behind my ear as I glance back at her. “She sacrificed herself as the vision told her to.”

My mother nods slowly. “We knew this was the way,” she says. “The way it had to be.”

“She hasn’t returned.” I sit up on my knees and move closer to the flames so their heat licks my face.

My mother tilts her head. “She will. You saw it.”

“I saw her dying.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m finding it hard to separate my dreams from my visions. What I want to happen from what I foresaw happening. “What if my interpretation was wrong?” The question leaves my lips as nothing more than a whisper.

The illusion of my mother’s hand reaches out from the flames. It is shimmering and warm, and it strokes the curve of my face. “It doesn’t work like that. We’re not the kind of seers who look at tea leaves and draw conclusions. We know what the visions show us. It is delivered to us by fate herself.” My mother takes back her hand. She is staring at me with utter conviction in her eyes. “You saw her dying and knew she would return.”

She’s not asking me a question, but I answer all the same. “Yes, Nova knew it too.”