Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
The second the cops dragged Emma out of the chapel, the air felt… wrong.
Not just heavy. Suffocating.
Like something in the atmosphere had shifted.
I should have been paying attention to the chaos in the front row—the murmurs, the shocked gasps, Kael arguing with the officers—but my gaze was locked on the back pews.
Because he was there.
Lucian.
Naked.
And he wasn’t alone.
My mind tried to reject what I was seeing, tried to explain it away, tried to rationalize the impossible—but I couldn’t.
Because Lily was straddling him, her nails digging into his chest, her hips rolling in slow, deliberate movements. Her long black dress was bunched up around her thighs, her pale skin faintly translucent, but unmistakably real in a way that made my head swim. She moved like she knew she had full control, like nothing—not death, not morality, not the weight of reality—could stop her.
And then?—
I saw Ciaran.
Watching.
No.
Not watching.
Sitting behind Lucian , leaning forward over his shoulder.
His lips pressed against Lily’s throat, his hands resting on her hips as he kissed her over Lucian’s shoulder, his face partially hidden behind the curtain of her dark hair. He was kissing her.
My stomach dropped. My pulse roared in my ears.
This wasn’t just some hallucination.
This was fucking happening.
The three of them were locked together— Lily grinding against Lucian, Ciaran pressing against Lucian from behind.
And no one else was seeing this.
I turned sharply, scanning the chapel. No one else reacted. Not Kael, who was rubbing his temples. Not Thorne, who had his arms crossed, watching the door Emma had been dragged through. Not Lucian’s parents, who sat like statues in the front row.
No one else could see them.
My breathing turned shallow. No. No, this was wrong. My grief had to be playing tricks on me. There was no way?—
But when I looked back?—
Lily was still riding Lucian, her back arching, her fingers dragging down his chest like he was something to be consumed. And Ciaran? He was still holding her , his mouth moving against her neck, his hands roaming over her body like she belonged to him, like they belonged to each other.
Lucian’s face was the worst part.
He looked?—
Wrecked.
Not just overwhelmed, not just lost— utterly, completely fucking ruined. His fingers twitched where they gripped Lily’s thighs, like he wanted to push her off but couldn’t. His lips parted like he was trying to breathe through it, but there was nowhere to go. He was trapped beneath her.
And the worst part?
For a split second, I thought I saw him look at me.
His dazed, unfocused gaze lifted just enough that for a breath—just a breath—I thought he was seeing me the way I was seeing him.
But then Lily’s pace quickened, and his head tipped back against the pew, his eyes squeezing shut, his body giving in.
I clutched the wooden pew in front of me, my knuckles white.
No. No, this wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.
I blinked hard, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Maybe I was losing it. Maybe this was what grief did to people—made them see things that weren’t there. Made them imagine the dead still moving, still touching, still fucking.
But then Ciaran’s eyes opened.
And he saw me.
For a moment, we just stared at each other.
This was real.
Lily. Lucian. Ciaran. They were all still here.
And I was the only one who could see them.
I felt my stomach drop into freefall.
My hand moved before I could think, fumbling for my phone in my pocket, my fingers numb as I unlocked the screen. If this was real—if I wasn’t losing my fucking mind—then I needed proof. I needed to see it.
With a deep, shaky breath, I lifted the camera, angling it toward the back pews where they were tangled together, bodies pressed too close, too wrong. My thumb hovered over the shutter button for only a second before I forced myself to snap the photo.
The screen flashed. The image appeared.
My pulse pounded as I stared at it. It wasn’t as clear as what I saw with my own eyes. The details blurred, as if the camera lens struggled to capture something it wasn’t meant to see. But the outlines were there.
Three figures.
Lucian’s slumped form. Lily’s shape draped over him. And behind them— Ciaran.
His face. Crisp. Sharp. Defined.
And his expression— pleading.
My breath hitched, ice crawling down my spine. He wasn’t looking at Lily. He wasn’t looking at Lucian.
He was looking at me.
Begging.
My hands trembled, grip tightening around my phone as I looked up, ready to confront the horror unfolding before me. But?—
They were gone.
The pew was empty.
The air around me was still.
I swallowed hard, my vision swimming. My fingers scrambled to open the photo again, needing—desperate—to confirm what I saw. But as I stared at the screen, the longer I looked, the fainter the outlines became. Like they were fading.
But they didn't disappear completely.
Even as the image blurred at the edges, even as the details softened like a half-forgotten dream, Ciaran’s face remained.
Sharp. Defined. Still pleading.
No matter how much I blinked, how much my mind screamed at me that this wasn't possible, the image on my screen remained undeniable proof.
They were here.
And I was the only one who knew it.