Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
AERO
Hours later, Aero sat beside Cassia’s bed in the healing ward the witches had set up in the Siren’s Rest next to Delos’s room. Someone—Avine, probably—had cleaned the blood from his hands, forced water on him, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. He hadn’t moved from the chair.
Cassia slept, her color slowly returning as the healing magic did its work. Three cracked ribs. A fractured skull. Internal bleeding that had nearly killed her before Junie’s magic caught it. The healers said she’d recover fully—witch resilience was remarkable—but she’d need days of rest.
Days. While Nerissa regrouped. While the siren planned her next attack.
A knock at the door. Delos slipped inside, still in human form, his golden-red hair disheveled. He looked exhausted—they all did—but his eyes were sharp.
“She’s alive,” Delos said quietly. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“And Nerissa?”
“Escaped.” The word tasted like ash. “Dove into the deep where I couldn’t follow.”
Delos was quiet for a moment. “She’ll be back.”
“Yes.”
“And when she comes back, you’re going to kill her.”
Aero looked at his assistant—his friend, the closest thing he’d had to family in six hundred years. “That’s the plan.”
“Good.” Delos’s jaw tightened. “I’ll help. After what she did to Cassia—after what she almost did—” He stopped, swallowed. “She doesn’t get to walk away from this.”
“No,” Aero agreed, his gaze returning to Cassia’s sleeping face. “She doesn’t.”
The young dragon left as quietly as he’d come. Aero stayed, watching Cassia breathe, counting each rise and fall of her chest. His dragon was restless beneath his skin—furious, coiled tight—but it didn’t push for release. It understood that their mate needed them here, present, human.
The rage could wait.
The revenge could wait.
For now, there was only this: the woman he loved, alive despite everything, her hand resting in his.
He’d almost lost her. Had felt, for those terrible, endless moments, what it would be like to exist in a world without her in it. All those centuries of emptiness had been nothing—nothing—compared to those minutes of absolute despair.
He couldn’t do it again. Couldn’t survive losing her.
Which meant Nerissa had to die. Not for revenge—though that was certainly part of it. Not for justice—though she deserved that too. But because as long as the siren lived, Cassia wasn’t safe. And Aero would burn the entire ocean dry before he let anything hurt his mate again.
Cassia stirred, her fingers tightening around his. “Stop brooding,” she mumbled without opening her eyes. “I can hear you plotting murder from here.”
Despite everything—the fear, the rage, the bone-deep exhaustion—he smiled. “I’m not plotting. I’m strategizing.”
“Same thing.” She cracked one eye open. “Come here.”
“I’m right here.”
“Closer.”
He leaned in, and she pressed a kiss to his jaw—soft, fleeting, but real. “Stop worrying. I’m not dying. The universe doesn’t get to separate us that easily.”
“The universe doesn’t get a say.” He turned his head, capturing her lips in a proper kiss. “Neither does Nerissa.”
“Damn right.” She smiled against his mouth. “Now stop plotting and hold me. I almost died. I’ve earned some quality cuddling.”
He climbed into the narrow bed beside her, careful of her injuries, and gathered her against his chest. She tucked herself into him with a sigh of contentment, her body fitting against his like she’d been made for this.
Maybe she had been. Maybe, after so many centuries of solitude, he’d finally found the person he was meant to keep.
All he had to do was make sure nothing took her away.
Outside, the sun was setting over a battered but standing Haven Shores. The wave hadn’t destroyed them. Nerissa’s first strike had failed.
But the war wasn’t over. Not even close.
Aero closed his eyes and held his mate, feeling the slow, steady rhythm of her heartbeat against his own. Whatever came next—whatever Nerissa threw at them—they would face it.
Storm meeting storm. As they were meant to from the start.