20
Disappointment rippled through me the moment my hand met empty sheets, the silence in the room confirming I was alone.
However, the space beside me was still warm.
Ren had stayed the night with me, and although we had initially fallen asleep from exhaustion, we both woke up restless a few hours later.
He didn’t hesitate to keep exploring every inch of my body, unable to keep his hands off me.
Half awake and in a dream-filled lust, he peppered kisses down my face, neck, and shoulders.
Eventually, the unbearable heat built up between us and the inevitable had happened.
Twice, actually, and each time was better than the last.
The bedroom door creaked open and Ren stepped inside. His hair was damp and he was wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
“You’re up.” He picked up a bottle from the dresser, pumping some serum into his hands as he ran his fingers through his freshly washed hair to give it a natural, wild style.
When he had offered his old bedroom to me, he hadn’t stuck around long enough to pack up his things.
His clothes were still in piles on the floor, his personal belongings scattered across the dresser and nightstand.
I’d left it all as it was, not having the heart to pack anything up.
It was like Ren was living with me even when he was gone.
Cleaning it up was like admitting that Ren would never come back, and I had refused to accept that.
He leaned down on the bed, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips, his minty toothpaste lingering with the taste.
“Mmm. Morning, Ren. I mean, boyfriend.” The word felt surreal coming from my mouth.
Ren groaned as he pulled away. “You’re never going to stop calling me that, are you?”
“Why would I?” I flung the covers off and scrubbed the sleep from my face. “It’s what you are and everyone needs to know it.”
“I never took you for the possessive type.” Ren narrowed his gaze on me. “That’s my job. I’m good at intimidating people. You … aren’t.”
“I can learn. Besides, I have a good teacher.” A radiant smile broke across my face, wide and unguarded, the kind that made my cheeks ache in the best way.
And for the second time since our paths had collided, Ren genuinely smiled back.
The sharp edges he usually wore so carefully eased away, and warmth settled into his expression, soft and unmistakably real. The silver ring at the corner of his mouth shimmered as his lips curved, gentle and breathtaking in its sincerity.
Something in my chest shifted. The walls Ren had built up around him were slowly crumbling.
That smile wasn’t casual or fleeting. It was care.
It was trust. It was affection that he didn’t bother trying to hide anymore.
For a long, fragile heartbeat, the rest of the world fell away and all I could feel was the certainty that Ren didn’t just stand beside me—he felt for me, deeply and without reservation.
“I’m heading downstairs.” Ren stood by the door. “How do you feel about pancakes for breakfast? Then we can figure out what to make of this mess we’re in. I went through Caspian’s grimoire again and I think I found something.”
“Sounds great.” I got up and kissed him again before he left, heading straight for the shower to wash off the sticky sweat that clung to me from last night.
I met Ren downstairs in the kitchen, where Stella and Ivy were curiously watching Ren cook, and Alex was completely absorbed in scrolling through my tablet, his first real encounter with the internet turning into an endless stream of cat photos, absurd gadget ads, and social posts that only raised more questions than they answered.
Stella looked at me, my giddy expression locked on the man cooking pancakes, then looked back to Ren, intensely focusing on not burning breakfast, and, with her sixth sense for picking up on these things and no shame in announcing it, instantly made the connection.
“I’m glad you two finally got your heads out of your asses and used your dicks instead. ”
Ren nearly spilled the pancake batter. Heat flushed up my neck as I awkwardly scratched it.
“Stella!” Ivy gasped. “I thought we agreed not to say anything!”
“W-what the hell are you talking about?” I dared to ask, although it was pretty obvious and no point in hiding it.
“You two were, um, awfully loud last night,” Ivy clarified. “And this morning. My bedroom is right next to yours. I heard more than I wanted to.”
“Not to mention, your stud muffin here,” Stella pointed to Ren, “was half naked, pouring himself a glass of water in the kitchen when we got home. Plus, Theo, you have all these little teeth marks on your neck—”
“Alright, enough!” I called out. “I get it. Sorry we kept you up. It won’t happen again.”
“Not if I can help it,” Ren mumbled under his breath.
I was about to open my mouth to confidently announce those words I was so proud of, that Ren was officially my boyfriend, but suddenly the doorbell started going off. It was followed by an insistent banging on our front door.
“Is anyone expecting company?” I asked, but no one had an answer.
The doorbell didn’t stop ringing, and the pounding came louder. Ren followed me into the entryway.
“Alright, I’m coming!” A hammering fist nearly knocked me over the head when I unlocked the door and opened it.
“Ah, sorry, Theo!” The early morning intruder bowed his head, pushing up his black glasses as they slid down his nose. “I would have called first, but this is urgent. I had to come over right away.”
“Markus?” I looked at the man beside him, his green eyes radiating urgency. “Jordan? Is everything okay?”
“Follow me.” He grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the kitchen table, where the rest of the crew were eating breakfast.
“Care to explain why you’re interrupting our breakfast so early in the morning?” Although there was a bite to Ren’s voice, curiosity lingered beneath it as he watched Markus spread out about a dozen pieces of notebook paper across the kitchen table.
“Are these your notes?” Alex picked up a notebook, fanning out the pages inside. “It’s all diagrams. Magic arrays. What am I looking at?”
Markus adjusted his glasses. “Old Syndicate work. Runes and arrays were my specialty.”
Alex tensed.
“Relax, I’m not a threat anymore,” Markus added quickly. “But I kept my notes. And while reviewing them …” He tapped a sheet of paper on the table. “This showed up again.”
Ivy leaned over. “That looks like Caspian’s array.”
“Similar structure,” Markus agreed. “Different purpose. Caspian’s design pushed magic outward, searching beyond the veil and throughout realms to find something.”
Ren dropped Caspian’s grimoire on the table. “It’s not just similar.” Everyone looked at him as he opened the book. “I found something you’ll all want to see.”
He flipped to a page near the back of the grimoire, a yellow piece of parchment with stained black ink that had smudged over the years. “Caspian wrote that the array doesn’t obey the anchor in the center. It reflects it.”
“Go on,” Markus encouraged, leaning in and scratching his chin.
“If the anchor reaches outward, it searches,” Ren said. “If it tries to control, it pulls inward.”
Alex perked up. “So, it changes depending on who the anchor is?”
Ren nodded. “What’s worse, is that the sentient magic he wielded, that both Theo and Alex have as well, isn’t exactly … stable. It’s fed by emotions, and goes beyond the normal laws of magic. It can be shaped into practically anything.”
Markus moved aside the grimoire and laid out six pieces of paper on the kitchen table. “I knew this array had to be gigantic if their goal was to use all the phantom’s power and feed it into the array. But this … I was not expecting this.”
The drawing formed together to create a map of downtown Salem … overlaid with a massive array structure.
“How did they even set up something like that without anyone noticing?” Ivy questioned.
“I don’t know, but my contacts confirmed it.
One said they were told to set up an array around here.
” Markus tapped on the paper, then slid it across to the other side.
“Someone else said it was here. Individually, it doesn’t add up, but together it makes sense.
Three days from now they’re moving the captured phantoms across the city and activating it. ”
Alex’s voice tightened. “Why? Who do they plan to be the anchor?”
Markus looked at him. “They don’t need to choose. Only a select few people have even the faintest possibility of managing something so wildly out of control.”
“So they have no idea that the anchor isn’t fixed.” I didn’t look up from the diagram. “They’re missing Caspian’s important observation, and how our unique magic works. Which means … they have no idea what’s going to happen when I approach, do they?”
“To be honest, neither do we,” Stella added. “The Syndicate doesn’t want Theo to power the array. They want to prove the system can safely stabilize itself through him, so they can turn magic into a self-governing network.”
“So, how do we stop this? They know Theo won’t just stay back and do nothing. They’re banking on him showing up. Do we stop the convoys? Focus on releasing the phantoms so they can’t fuel the array with power?”
“No.” I met Ren’s eyes. “We walk right into their trap and meet it head on.”
No one argued because they all realized the same thing. We weren’t stopping a plan anymore. We were interrupting something already in motion.