Another giggle parted my lips, and Ash captured the sound with his. Passion engulfed us, one not too different from what I’d felt when we were on the bank of my lake right before he took me into the water. I could feel my fangs throbbing. The desire for his blood rose, but that would require me to stop kissing him, and I couldn’t even bear the thought.

This truly was madness.

And maybe how close we came to losing one another and what each of us was willing to do to keep the other safe was what drove us when Nektas and the Ancient waited only feet away. There was no way they didn’t know what was happening, but in that minute, I didn’t care. I was a fire in the flesh then, hungry for each thrust of his cock. Starving for him. He was greedy for each sweep of my tongue, each breath he tasted. He thrust hard and fast, and I met him just as fiercely.

And as the tension built and built until I didn’t think I could exist for another second, and caught on that exquisite precipice, I knew that despite how treacherous our future would be, how uncertain everything was, one thing would remain constant. The tempest within us peaked, taking us both in the same heartbeat, and I knew there would always be us. Together. Always.

Ash’s breathing was ragged as aftershocks of pleasure skittered through us. “Liessa,” he rasped, pressing into me.

Several seconds passed—definitely more than a minute—but no sounds came from the hallway.

His forehead dropped against mine, and he swallowed hard. “He’s going to ask about Sotoria.”

“I know.” I closed my eyes. “There’s no way Kolis still believes I’m her. He would be dead if I was, and he knows that. He…” The look on his face as I drove the Ancient bone into him took shape.

“What?” Ash pressed quietly.

I shook my head. I couldn’t say what I thought I’d seen in Kolis’s expression. Resignation? Maybe even relief. It made me uncomfortable to even think about it. “He doesn’t know where Sotoria’s soul is.”

“And we need to use that to our benefit. He needs to believe that it is still in you,” he said, his body chilling against and inside mine. “Do and say whatever you need to convince him of such.”

I kissed him, knowing how much it took for him to say that. I knew that taking what protection it offered me cut him up and would keep slicing at him. I hated this. All of it.

He gently separated our bodies and lowered me to the floor, ensuring I was steady before he pulled up his pants and then fixed mine. Neither of us spoke as he worked the legging up my leg and then straightened the dark gray blouse and vest I wore. When he was done, he smoothed the sides of my hair back, then tilted my chin until our eyes met.

Ash swept his thumb across my cheek. “Promise me,” he said. “Promise me that whatever Kolis says or does, you won’t let it leave a mark.”

“I promise.”

Splitting open the realm to travel from one location to another in a matter of seconds was what Ash had done in the past. It was a form of shadowstepping that only Primals and the oldest gods were capable of. And, of course, the Ancients. I just hadn’t realized that was what Ash had been doing. I’d always closed my eyes, and even if I had kept them open, I probably wouldn’t have been able to see past the whirling shadows.

I didn’t close my eyes when the Ancient took my hand and the very fabric of the realm peeled back, revealing the shimmering, golden cluster of trees just beyond the City of the Gods and Cor Palace.

The very trees that Aios had created with her touch.

Glancing up at the graceful, sweeping branches and the glistening, fan-shaped leaves, I wondered if she would grow them in the Shadowlands now. I hoped so. They were beautiful, and I would never expect Aios to step foot in Dalos again.

Lowering my gaze, I peered through the sun-dappled trees. Nighttime had already come to pass between the time I’d been here and now. The air was still balmy, but it smelled even more of stale lilacs.

Of Death.

My lip curled as I shut down my emotions, locking them away. I didn’t don the veil of nothingness, though. I would never do that again. I just became another part of who I was. A colder, calmer version of me.

“Let’s get this over with.” I started walking forward, my steps making no sound.

“Seraphena.”

I stopped.

“We need to speak first.”

I counted to five, though not because I was anxious. I wasn’t walking out of these trees as I had the first time. I was irritated with the delay. “I don’t want to linger.” I faced the Ancient. “I need to return to the Shadowlands as soon as possible.”

“Before your husband does something he’ll regret?”

Well, yeah, that was the number-two reason. I doubted he’d left for Vathi, and the longer I was here, the more likely it was that he’d do something. But the number-one reason? “I didn’t have such a great experience the last time I was in Dalos. I don’t want to spend a moment longer here than necessary.”

There it was again. A barely noticeable flinch in the skin around his eyes. “Nor do I.”

“Then get on with it,” I said before I could remind myself exactly what I was speaking to. “And I mean that in the most respectful way possible.”

His lips curved slightly. “Holland warned me about you.”

I stiffened, unsure how to respond. I had no idea if all the Ancients knew about his involvement or that thin, gray line Holland often walked.

“He warned me that you could have an…assertive personality,” he continued. “I believe he said, ‘aggressively assertive.’”

I winced. “I can’t exactly deny that.”

Aydun eyed me. “I’m not sure Holland knows you as well as he thinks he does, though. I expected more of a fight from you than Nyktos. He’s always been calm. Practical. You, on the other hand…” Another emotionless, tight smile appeared. “But that is what emotion does.”

“I disagree with that.”

“Of course, you do. You were once mortal. That is not a part of you that you can carve out.” He said it like he pitied me. “But you calmed quicker than Nyktos did. You understood. I didn’t expect that.”

I frowned. “Exactly what did Holland tell you?”

“Enough.”

Shaking my head, I pushed my hair back. “I think the truth is that I didn’t really know Holland.”

“You know him better than most.”

Then why isn’t he the one here? I didn’t ask that. It felt like it revealed too much. “His eyes looked nothing like yours.”

“That’s because your mind was incapable of seeing him for what he was,” he explained as my brows inched up my forehead. “Only the true Primal of Life and the true Primal of Death possess the knowledge to see a Fate for what we are.”

The fact that we could see them as they were because we knew what they were…kind of made sense. “I don’t think you wanted to talk to me about Holland.”

“No.” He came forward, his feet gliding over the grass and mossy rock. “I have seen all the possible tomorrows. Some will surely come, and others are still unwritten. There are so many possibilities.”

I dragged my gaze to his. The blue swirled into the green of his eyes. “Okay?”

“So many small choices can alter the outcome, as you are already well aware,” he said, and my skin pimpled. “Something small and insignificant can change the course of the realms. That is why the future is never fully written.”

I nodded slowly. “Pretty sure I’ve heard this before, so—”

“But there are possibilities that become events written in the essence of the realms,” he said, his voice lowering as my breath snagged. “A series of steps and choices that will inevitably lead to only one outcome.” The brown sliced through the blue as the stars grew in his eyes. “If war breaks out among the Primals, the balance will be unsettled in ways that will have dire consequences.” The stars in his eyes brightened until they were almost painful to look at. “My brethren who went to ground will be disturbed.”