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The Jeep parked on the opposite side of the road.
The sun threw one last glowing light off the windows, blinding me.
I waited for the door to open.
For Ayla to skip into my parents’ arms.
But then...something happened.
Something I couldn’t explain.
Something science couldn’t explain.
Maths or logic or common sense could never explain.
My heart wrenched in my chest as if it came clean away from arteries and veins.
My bones warmed.
My blood fizzed.
And...I knew.
I knew.
I knew before my knees gave out.
I knew before the car door opened.
I knew before Ayla skidded to a stop and said, “Wait, you’re not Nana and Pop Pop.”
My eyes met the coal-dark stare of someone I never thought I’d see again.
I choked on a sob.
Slammed to the ground.
And broke.
Chapter Forty-Nine
*
Aslan
*
(Heart in Russian: ??????)
EVERYTHING HAPPENED IN SLOW MOTION.
I was underwater or watching an old-school movie.
It didn’t feel real.
This surreal, incredible, impossible moment fucking terrified me because...what if this wasn’t real. What if this was a dream, and I was about to wake up?
I’d find myself back in the cave, strapped to the chair, with another bolt of electricity tearing up my insides.
Another delusion slowly killing me.
I wouldn’t survive it.
Please, please be real.
My vision danced with sun flares and tears. My mind utterly unable to absorb the scene before me.
Neri.
Fuck.
Neri.
I forgot my cane and tripped out of the Jeep.
I left the engine running and the door open as a tiny girl on swift feet slammed to a stop before me. It took all my effort to tear my gaze from my soulmate’s and look at my daughter.
In another moment, in another life, meeting the person I’d helped create would take precedence. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from scooping her up, inhaling her deep, and pledging everything I was to her.
But...in this life...the one that I didn’t trust was real—the one that might be stolen and proven to be false—made me awfully selfish.
I only had eyes for her mother.
I couldn’t breathe until I’d touched her and knew, once and for all...I was home.
My knees shook as I studied the little girl, dripping wet and clad in a bright-yellow swimming costume. She reminded me of Neri when she was younger. Always dressed in Lycra and trailing droplets of water.
“Who are you?” She poked me in the thigh. “Where’s Nana and Pop Pop?”
I swallowed hard and struggled to speak. “I...I’m—”
The two shirtless men who’d been playing with her darted across the sleepy street and scooped Ayla into their arms.
Part of me was jealous.
The other part possessive.
But in the distance, kneeling on an overgrown lawn, her eyes never wavering from me, Neri kept me trapped.
I felt her calling me even though she didn’t speak.
I felt her heart summoning mine even though she didn’t move.
I didn’t have the capacity to feel anything else.
Just longing.
Soul-deep, raw, fervent longing.
“Aslan.”
My name spoken by the guy holding Ayla wrenched my head up.
I blinked. I recognised him from long ago video-call sessions and late-night brainstorming. “Teddy?”
He nodded. “Hey, mate. Long time no see.” Holding out his hand, he waited for me to place mine into his, then shook me hard. Glancing at the man beside him, I swallowed hard. “Edmund.”
“Hi, Aslan.”
Ayla reached for my cheek. Her small, clammy hand stung me like the bees on her costume. “That’s my Daddy’s name. Are you a lion too?”
A groan worked up my throat. A noise of desperation, disbelief, and despair.
She knew about me.
Neri told her about me.
Her little nose wrinkled as she cocked her head. “Sen kimsin?”
I swayed backward against the Jeep.
Fuck, she speaks Turkish too.
Neri had kept my culture alive. She’d given pieces of me to my daughter while I’d been nothing more than a ghost.
My ruined heart couldn’t take this.
My pulse shot sky high, unable to cope.
“W-Who am I?” I repeated her question in English, my voice wet and scratchy. “I...” My gaze shot past hers and returned to Neri’s. Always to Neri. Forever to the matching, missing piece of my soul. “I—”
I choked.
I stumbled.
I couldn’t.
Neri plastered both hands over her mouth, holding back her sobs, but it didn’t stop her entire body from shuddering. Her left arm held the same ink that’d been flayed off me and my mind tripped with horrors of before, then, and now.
I forgot what my daughter asked, and only one word shot to mind. A word I’d always associate with the love I had for my moon-given wife. “Canim...”
Burying her face into her lap, Neri cried brutally hard.
Teddy and Eddie glanced at her. An unspoken look passed between them. Without a word, they whispered something into Ayla’s ear, reached past me to turn off the Jeep and lock the door, then turned and walked barefoot across the road. Teddy ran his fingers over Neri’s damp hair and Eddie pressed a kiss to her forehead before both men padded down the side of the house and disappeared with Ayla.
