Chapter 68
SIXTY-EIGHT
The dream starts with fire.
Not the warm kind. Not the kind that crackles behind a hearth or dances in candlelight. No—this fire screams. It devours the world in silence. Everything around me burns, but I hear nothing. No wind. No cries. Just absence.
And she’s in the center of it. Lillien.
Her back is to me. Her long, dark-red hair whips in a wind I can’t feel. Her silhouette glows like embers, burning into my retinas like punishment.
I run toward her. But the ground fractures beneath my feet, splitting into jagged chasms that bleed black smoke. The more I run, the farther she drifts.
“No,” I snarl, reaching forward. “Get back here.”
She doesn’t hear me. Or she doesn’t care.
Because he’s there. Zepharion. He emerges from the smoke like he belongs to it—tall, regal, fucking wrong. His hands curl around her waist. She doesn’t resist. His mouth brushes her ear. She shudders.
And then she turns—toward him, not me—and smiles. That smile is the worst part. Because it’s the one she gave me once. In the woods. After she called me dangerous and didn't flinch.
Now it’s his.
“No!” My roar splits the sky—but the world stays silent.
I lunge across the crumbling stone. I reach for her. My fingers graze her skin—And slide through smoke. She vanishes. Dissolves into Zepharion’s chest like she was never mine to begin with.
I fall. Through flame. Through smoke. Through powerlessness.
A voice follows me down.
Not hers. His. “She was promised to me. You were never strong enough to keep her.”
I wake up with a snarl in my throat. The sheets twist around my body, soaked with sweat. My chest heaves, muscles coiled tight like I’d fought someone in my sleep.
I didn’t. That’s the problem. I couldn’t stop it.
My heart isn’t racing from fear. It’s rage. White-hot and choking.
I run a hand down my face, jaw clenched so hard it aches. The scent of smoke clings to my skin—but it’s not real. Just a memory.
A warning. She slipped through my fingers. In the dream. But I won’t let that happen again.
I’ll tear the world apart before I let him touch her. Even if I have to burn with it.
I’m pacing now. Back and forth across the throne room of Deimos’s keep, the floor slick with cold obsidian and the ghosts of our failures. My feet know the rhythm of fury. They carry it better than I do. Each step is a silent curse. Each breath tastes like ash and memory.
Deimos stands near the hearth, arms crossed, jaw tight. He hasn’t said a word in ten minutes. I’m not even sure he’s blinking. Just staring into the flames like they might spit out answers.
“She’s slipping,” I mutter. “I can’t feel her. Not really. Just… noise. Echoes.” Static on the line where there used to be warmth. A presence. Her.
Deimos doesn’t look at me. “Mine’s gone.”
I stop pacing. Whip toward him. “What?”
He finally turns, and there’s a look in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Not even when we fought side by side in the Old Wars. Not even when he came home blood-soaked from the Gates of Krados.
It’s not just rage. It’s heartbreak.
“It’s not gone,” Cassiel says softly from the shadows.
He’s sitting on the edge of the long black bench near the wall, still wrapped in that damn robe like he hasn’t slept in a week. The deep folds of it hang open at the chest, his collarbone sharp in the candlelight. He looks like something out of a painting—divine and ruined all at once.
“It’s dulled. Dimmed. That’s all,” he says. “Zepharion can’t sever a bond like yours unless you’re there in person. And even then… he’d have to kill you to make it stick.”
Deimos bristles. “Then why can’t I feel her?”
Cassiel shrugs like it costs him something. “Because he’s trying to break it. And you’re too far to fight it.”
I cross my arms, suddenly cold. “Then why can you feel her? Why can she still reach you?”
His eyes lift to mine. Steady. Knowing. “Because my bond is more internal. Made from angel fire. It’s… different. Holier. Older. Maybe even invisible to Zepharion.” He pauses, like the words leave a burn in his throat. “I don’t think he even knows about it.”
Deimos steps forward, voice low and deadly. “Then what do you suggest?”
Cassiel stands. His wings flex slightly behind him. His power hums like static in the air, making the torches flicker. For a moment, he looks like a god. Like something made to command galaxies.
“We bond to each other,” he says.
Silence.
I blink. “What?”
“To each other,” he repeats. “Like you and I bonded with Lillien. Not out of fate. Out of choice.”
“You want us to what?” I ask, a dry laugh curling out of my throat. “Swear blood oaths over a fire? Make friendship bracelets?”
Cassiel’s mouth quirks as he steps closer. “We bond through primal magic. Sex. Blood. Shared intention. The same way she bonded with each of us. If we bind ourselves to each other—Deimos first, since his bond is the deepest—we’ll be stronger. Tied together. Anchored by more than just her.”
Deimos lets out a slow exhale, like he's processing it in pieces. “You think it’ll work?”
“I know it will,” Cassiel says. “Her bond to you was mate-born. Fate-forged. If we bind ourselves to that, to each other, we might be able to pull her back. Or at least give her something real to hold onto. A tether. A lifeline. One strong enough to burn through anything Zepharion throws at her.”
I glance between them. My heart’s thudding again—but not from the nightmare.
From this. From the idea of touching them.
Marking them. Becoming more than just three broken things in a room full of echoes.
I think of Lillien. Of the way her power sang against my skin the first time she let me in.
The way my name sounded in her mouth when she came.
And then I think of her now—alone. Starving. Fading.
I chuckle, half-shocked. “So we fuck?”
Deimos’s mouth curves in that sharp way of his. The one that usually means someone’s about to bleed. “We fuck,” he confirms.
Cassiel smirks. “With purpose. With blood. With magic.”
I laugh again, but it’s rougher now. Lower. “Well. I guess this is what they call team bonding.”