The Commander (Dominion Hall #3)

30

ATLAS

I hated goodbyes. Always had. They were messy, jagged things—splinters that dug in deep and festered. But this one? This one carved something out of me I didn’t know I’d given up until her arms were around me, her breath warm against my chest, and the storm screaming like it wanted to swallow us both.

Hurricane Arden had turned Charleston into a war zone before it even made landfall. The wind tore at the cottage, clawing at the roof with a sound like metal shredding, rain slashing sideways in sheets so thick I could barely see the road beyond the porch. Trees bent double, their branches snapping like brittle bones, and the air tasted of salt and ruin. It was chaos out there—wild, untamed, and hungry. A beast I understood better than most.