The weight of the betrayal is unbearable. I’m so ashamed I shared the parts of myself that I’ve never shared with anyone, and now I have no place to hide. All I can do is run.

“Harlow, please, just stay and let me explain.” His voice is hoarse and pleading. “Don’t run from me⁠—”

He moves to the side enough that I’m already at the door. Henry cages me there. I turn to face him head-on.

I want him to kiss me and erase the last five minutes. I want to stab him in the heart, just to share a hint of the pain I feel.

“Move,” I whisper.

Henry groans and tucks his face into my neck.

“I need to leave,” I rasp. I’m going to lose it if I can’t get out of this room in the next minute.

Henry growls, and his possessive hand comes to my hip. “You’ve infected me with hunger. I would rather break the world than let you go.”

It’s both hot and wrong, because part of me wants him to make me stay, to fuck me into oblivion so I don’t have to think about how hurt and stupid I feel.

I once told Henry I never quit and I don’t break. How wrong I was, because I’m surrendering now.

I tilt my chin up, look into his eyes, and say the one thing I know will get me out of this. “Stars.”

My voice is a hoarse rasp. Henry looks bereft, but he immediately steps back and opens the door. I launch myself into the hall and slam the door closed on the man I love.

OceanofPDF.com

63HENRY

This day has been ten years in the making—the fuel that has carried me through every dark moment since my sister died. I’ve dreamt of the peace I would feel having finally avenged Holly, watching Harrick Carrenwell know he’s lost, and ensuring that no one else will suffer for his ambition.

I should feel relieved that he’s gone—satisfied to see violent justice done. Instead, I feel haunted by the betrayal in my wife’s eyes as she said, “Stars.”

Harlow didn’t use her safe word on our wedding night, or later when I was hunting her and fucking her into the forest floor. She used it when she found out I lied to her.

Of course she did. It was monumentally stupid to think I could hide this forever. I was just hoping⁠—

I scrub a hand down my face in frustration. I was just hoping to trap her at the fort with me so I could contain her when she found out. And how would that make me any less monstrous than her family? How much more manipulative could I be?

The vision of her lips brushing over my scarred chest so tenderly—like she was trying to will away my grief and heal it over with affection—haunts me. My life has been full of people with Divine blessings, but I’d never seen true magic until I watched her kiss a wish into a wound.

I stare up at the statue of Asher. His face looks eerie, lit from below by sunstone, which is probably the point. People in Lunameade have so little respect for the Divine of Endings. Foolish, since his power will be what delivers them from the calculating rule of the Carrenwells.

But that’s not necessary now. Liza and Harrick Carrenwell weren’t brought down by rebels. They were brought down by their own daughter.

My friends move around the courtyard in preparation for the day’s events. Bryce tightens the laces on his boots while Carter checks the blade on his dagger. Naima, who came on this trip in the event that any of our allies were wounded, checks a series of glass vials and wound dressings in her apothecary bag.

The initial plan was to finally reveal the Carrenwells’ corruption. My friends are aware that plan has changed, but not why.

I spent the morning explaining each sibling’s magic and what Harlow told me about the tunnel. We’re as ready as we can be to counteract what they might throw at us, but I still feel so restless.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Bryce asks, tying his copper hair back at the nape of his neck. “You seem out of sorts.”

“I’m fine,” I snap.

Bryce flinches. “Don’t bite my head off. What’s with you? You’re not hungry, are you?”

I glower at him.

“I still don’t understand why the instructions changed at the last minute. Something feels off,” Carter says, looking at the note in his hand.

The new instructions, straight from Rochelli himself, were left in a mailbox for us this morning. For better or worse, today is the day the rebel leader will finally be unmasked.

While we were expecting a few last-minute instructions, we weren’t expecting a deviation from the plan we’ve been refining for months. I did wonder how it might change with the sabotage the Carrenwells set into motion for Rafe. And, of course, considering my wife murdered her parents yesterday.

“I think I know what happened,” I say quietly.

They continue checking their weapons, only partly paying attention.

I rub my hand over the back of my neck. “I can see color.”

All three of them stop and turn to face me.

“Come again,” Carter says, a hint of a smirk on his lips.

I point at him. “Do not smile. I can see color. It’s not a big deal⁠—”

“Not a big deal!” Bryce practically shrieks. “You fell in love with your wife—with our enemy—and that’s not a big deal?”

“Harlow is not our enemy. There’s—fuck!” I scrub my hand down my face. “There is a lot that we didn’t know. About why things are so tense between her and her parents, and it’s not my story to share. That said, she has a very strong reason to be angry at them. They have done some truly unforgivable things to their own children.”

Bryce shakes his head and laughs indignantly. “I can’t believe it. She’s got to you.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“She did. I didn’t think it was possible, but she’s done it,” Bryce says. “Next thing we know, you’ll be saying Harrick doesn’t have to die.”

“Well, Harrick doesn’t have to die because he’s already dead,” I say.

“How?” Carter asks.

“Harlow killed him, along with her mother,” I say.

“Did you see the bodies?” Bryce asks.

I shake my head. “No, but considering my wife is a serial killer who murders abusers, it’s not a stretch to believe that she would take care of the ones in her own life.”

They all quiet. Carter and Bryce exchange a look.

“I saw her afterward,” I say. “She’s not that good of an actress. She just lost it yesterday. Broke down in the garden and then destroyed Harrick’s study with a fire poker.”

Carter steps forward. “If Harrick and Liza are dead, then who’s in charge?”

“Able, I suppose—assuming she hasn’t killed him by now,” I say.

“Weren’t you supposed to be watching her?” Naima asks.

I rub both hands down my face. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I fucked up. She saw the orange in my aura this morning before I was fully awake and she ran off and I don’t know where she went or what to do, and fuck⁠—”

I pace away from them, trying to ease the tension in my chest. I’m so angry at myself, I can barely breathe. The suffocating tightness in my chest slowly abates. I take three deep breaths and finally turn back to my friends.

“I can’t believe you can see color,” Bryce says.

“I knew it,” Naima says, beaming. “I saw you look at that woman and I knew it.” She points at Bryce. “You owe me a bottle of wine.”

Bryce groans and waves a dismissive hand at her. “Unbelievable. When did it happen?”

“Yesterday, during the whole fire-poker-in-the-study situation,” I say.

“That would get you going,” Carter says, rolling his eyes.

I run both hands through my hair, tugging at the ends. “I almost had her—really had her. And I can’t believe I fucked up so monumentally at such a critical moment.”

Back when we arrived in Lunameade, I was so certain this would be easy. I didn’t know then that a woman would rip out the seams of my life and I’d want to thank her for it.

Naima crosses the courtyard and pulls me into a hug. I don’t even bother fighting it.