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"I'm sorry." Jax speaks behind me, but I don't turn. I keep watching the twinkling lights in the distance, my hand gripping against the railing just hard enough to anchor myself. I feel him move behind me, his hand moving to my shoulder. He squeezes lightly, just enough to offer the smallest comfort. "I'm so fucking sorry," he whispers, but I hear the break in his voice.

"I don't know how to live like this anymore, Jax."

"I should have let you go."

I freeze under his touch, his words repeating in my head. I should have let you go. I try not to think about what would have happened if he'd have let me go, because every scenario leads back to the same thing. Whether I'm free or not, Rosa is still trapped somewhere without me. And the twisted part is I'm glad he didn't let me go, because if I was never brought to this manor, to my captor, I probably would never find her. I let the silence stretch because it's easier than telling him that. The rain continues to pour down on us on the same balcony he'd once pulled me back from. Neither of us moves, but neither of us leave, either.

Chapter Thirty

Ace

I finally said the most honest thing I've ever felt.

I should have let you go.

We stay in the pouring down rain, my shirt sticking to my back as her curls flatten to her face, but neither of us move. My lips still taste of her kiss, my body buzzing more from the way her body curved against mine over the fact I'd hidden under the bed and heard everything between her and Vincent. She'd played him, offered herself to him in order to save us both, and yet, I still can't offer her anything except useless apologies and a fact I think I've always known.

"Will you talk to me?" I ask, thumb caressing her shoulder. She turns, big brown eyes staring up at me as the rain drips down her cheeks. She's beautiful, more so than most of the women he brings here, but fuck, in this moment—with her hair wet and eyes wide—I've never seen a beauty like it, not as pure like this. My hands itch. I want to turn her and pull her into me. To hold her in my arms and promise her everything I know I can never keep, even though every inch of me is gearing up to go to war for her.

She doesn't answer. She's so lost in her thoughts that I don't even think she feels me next to her. I look up to the stars, the clouds starting to break as the last drizzle of rain pours down. The stars twinkle above, just like that night she stood on the ledge.

"I could give you that philosophy lesson now, if you wanted." I almost cringe at myself, but it works. She turns with her eyebrow raised. Giving me that look that makes my heart almost tear out of my chest.

"You want to tell me stories about the stars, now?"

"Yeah." I shrug. "If you wanted."

"Okay," she whispers softly.

"That's Orion. The hunter. Arrogant, full of himself, convinced he could kill anything." I glance down at her for a second before looking back up. "The gods sent a scorpion after him. Scorpius. They fought, but in the end, the scorpion killed him. So they put them both in the sky, but on opposite sides. One rises, the other sets. They chase each other forever, but they never meet."

"Always at war." Her voice is quiet.

"Always." I pause. "Adrian used to say me and Vincent were like them. Never in the same room without it turning into a fight, never in the same sky."

She smiles at that. "Did you used to win?"

The sound I make is somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. "Do you think I'd ever lose to Vincent?"

"What else?" she whispers.

I should point at something. The Plough, the North Star, anything. Instead, my hand finds her waist, like it's got a mind of its own. And the second my palm settles, there it's like touching a live wire. Heat shoots straight up my arm, my chest, my fucking throat. She doesn't pull away. And I don't, either.

I clear my throat, dragging my eyes back to the sky before I do something stupid. "There." I point with my free hand, chin tipping toward the cluster just east of Orion. "Andromeda."

"The chained woman?" Her voice is soft, but I hear the edge underneath it. She knows this one. Of course she does, it's the story of her own life up in the sky.

"Yeah." I almost stop there. Almost. But she's waiting, and for some fucking reason, I want to be the one who tells her, to maybe be the one who gives her hope. "Her mother pissed off the sea god, boasted her daughter was more beautiful than his nymphs. So he sent a monster to tear the kingdom apart, and the only way to stop it was to chain her to a rock by the sea and leave her for it."

"Sounds about right." There's a bitterness in her voice that sinks in deep.

"She didn't die, though." My hand tightens, just slightly, at her waist. "Perseus was flying past, and saw her chained there. Killed the creature before it ever touched her. Cut her free and married her." I nod up at the stars. "That's her. Not the monster, not her mother's mistake. Her. Free, and put in the sky for it."

"I can't see it." She squints up, brows drawn together, tilting her head.

"Here." My hand leaves her waist and finds her wrist instead, guiding her arm up until her finger points at the sky with mine. The second our skin touches, it's the same live wire all over again, but worse this time. Worse because now it's her pulse I can feel under my fingers instead of just the curve of her waist. "See the four stars there, curving down? That's her spine. Her arm reaches out that way, toward Pegasus."

"Oh." Her breath catches, and I don't know if it's the stars or my hand still wrapped around hers.