Jade
The sheets smell like salt and smoke.
I’ve been lying here for hours. Maybe. Time moves differently when you’re staring at a wooden ceiling and trying not to think about everything that went wrong in a single day.
Especially because when Aeolus shoved my storm into his bag and handed it to Evie, he looked at it like it was contaminated.
Curse, Callie’s voice echoes in my mind. Maybe it’s a curse.
I pull the blanket over my head like I’m five years old and hiding from monsters under the bed.
Except the monster isn’t under the bed, because the monster is me.
A girl who almost killed everyone she cares about because her feelings got hurt and she threw a tantrum like a child who never learned emotional regulation.
Some champion I’m turning out to be.
Eventually, the door clicks open, and soft, careful footsteps pad into the room.
Logan. Who else could it be? Definitely not Callie or Kieran—it would be seriously weird if it was Kieran—and Evie and I haven’t exactly been warm and cozy with each other since she found out I was keeping my lightning magic secret from her for months.
The mattress dips, but Logan doesn’t try to pull the blanket down. He just lies there beside me, a careful distance between our bodies, staying completely still.
“You don’t have to talk,” he says. “I just didn’t want you to be alone.”
My breath catches in my chest. Because that’s the thing about Logan—he says things that sound simple but aren’t, things that slip past my defenses and lodge behind my ribs where I can’t dig them out.
“I almost killed you,” I say, and it comes out muffled through the blanket. “I almost killed everyone.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because a god showed up and ripped my storm out like he was pulling a weed,” I throw Callie’s words back at him. “It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.”
“Pull the blanket down,” he says, far more patiently than I deserve. “Please.”
I don’t want to. I want to stay in my fabric cocoon where I don’t have to see his face or let him see mine. Where I can pretend for a few more minutes that I’m not a disaster wrapped in human skin. Well, witch skin. Whatever.
But my hands move anyway, pushing the blanket down to my chin, and then I’m looking at him in the dark.
He’s lying on his side, facing me, close enough that I can see the sharp angles of his face, the tension in his jaw, and the shadows under his eyes.
“There you are,” he says, barely in a whisper.
Two words. That’s all he gives me, and they crack me open like an eggshell, because Logan doesn’t say “are you okay” or “we should talk.” He says, “there you are,” as if finding my face under the blanket was the only outcome he cared about tonight.
“Here I am.” I try to laugh, but it comes out wrong. “Cursed Jade. Disaster Jade. A goddess’s chosen champion who needed a wind god to clean up her mess.”
“Stop.”
“Why? Callie’s right. I can’t control my power. Every time I think I’m getting better, something happens and I almost kill everyone.”
“You didn’t almost kill everyone,” he says, quiet and sure. “You lost control, and you pulled it back. That’s not failure, Jade. That’s learning.”
Then, he kisses me.
It’s not demanding or desperate. It’s just soft, slow, and quiet, and it tastes like please stop spiraling and I’ve got you and I love you.
His mouth is soft against mine, and his hand cradles the back of my head, and for three seconds, the only thing in the world is the warmth of him and the salt of my tears between our lips.
When he pulls back, his thumb wipes the wetness from my cheek. The tenderness in the gesture is so at odds with the sharp, controlled man the rest of the world sees that my chest aches.
“I need to tell you something,” he says in the tone he only uses when what’s coming next is important. “It’s something I’ve never told anyone.”
My heart stutters. “Okay.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I can feel his breath on my lips and the tension coiled in his body, like he’s bracing for the worst.
“Before you came to Blaze, I was disappearing.” The words come out slow, like he’s pulling them from somewhere rusty. “I was becoming cold and empty, capable of things that terrified me.”
Miles. The assassin.
I think it, but I don’t say it. His implication is clear enough.
“After four years of watching everyone around me live their lives while I rewound time again and again, redoing conversations until I got them right and erasing mistakes before anyone knew I’d made them, I thought I’d lost the ability to feel anything real.
Nothing in my life was permanent, because every moment was a draft I could revise. ”
The ache in my chest spreads.
“Then you showed up,” he continues. “Chaotic, impulsive, and electrifying things by accident. You looked at me like I was a puzzle you couldn’t wait to solve.”
“I still can’t solve you.” I manage a watery smile. “You’re very confusing.”
“You made me want to feel again.” His arms wrap tightly around me, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. “You reminded me what it’s like to be alive.”
“You keep me alive too.” The words come out before I can stop them. “Before I got here, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life alone. I thought I wasn’t enough, and that maybe I deserved it.”
Logan pulls back enough to look at me. His gray eyes are dark in the dim cabin, but still as fierce as ever.
“You deserve everything,” he says. “And I’m going to spend as long as I can proving it to you.”
The words settle over me like a blanket, warm and heavy.
Because no one’s ever said that to me before.
Not my parents, who wanted me to be someone else.
Not my ex, who replaced me the moment I stopped being convenient.
Not even Oliver, who was kind but never saw me the way Logan does—like I’m not just enough, but more than he ever expected to deserve.
My fingers find the rings on the chain against his chest. His breath catches, and the sound unravels the last thread of restraint I was pretending to hold onto.
One second we’re looking at each other in the dark, and the next his lips are on mine, his fingers sliding into my hair.
Electricity sparks between us.
Logan’s whole body goes rigid.
“Jade.” My name comes out strangled, and his eyes go dark. It’s that same hungry look from when I shocked him on deck and his veins lit up silver beneath his skin.
So, I allow the electricity to flow, constant and humming, and suddenly we’re a tangle of limbs and desperate hands as our clothes peel off. I keep the electricity flowing the entire time, a steady current that pulses between us everywhere we touch.
Every time a spark travels through him, his body shudders, his breath catches, or his fingers dig into my hips. And there it is again—that silver glow beneath his skin, tracing the path of his veins as if his circulatory system is lighting up from the inside.
“More,” he says, the word bitten out through gritted teeth. “Don’t stop.”
So, I don’t.
I let the electricity pulse in waves. They’re not the wild, explosive surges from two nights ago on deck. Instead, I let it pulse through my fingertips in a steady, controlled current.
His hands shake where they grip me, and his breathing goes ragged.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he says, his forehead dropping to my shoulder.
“I think I do.”
I send a pulse of electricity through my palms where they rest on his shoulders, and his whole body jerks, his head tilting back as light crawls up his neck.
“Jade.” The way he says my name is rough and guttural, and when he pushes into me, I let the electricity surge through every point of contact, watching his face as the sensation crashes through him. “This is different from last night,” he says. “This is—”
“Constant,” I finish. “I’m keeping it going.”
His arms shake where they brace on either side of my head, like I’ve plugged him into a power grid. His skin’s flushed, his pupils blown, and every muscle in his body’s trembling with the effort of staying controlled.
“I can feel everything.” His words come out like a confession. “You’re keeping me here, tethered and present.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I wrap my legs around him, pulling him deeper. “I’m right here.”
The current continues to build, and every surge makes him shudder, makes his control slip further, makes him look at me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.
When I start to crest, the electricity grows stronger and brighter, until it’s a sustained surge that floods through both of us as pure pleasure crashes over me.
Logan’s body locks as he follows me over the edge.
His face buries in my neck, and there’s wetness against my skin. Tears, maybe, or sweat. The sound he makes is broken and shattered, like I’ve reached inside him and touched a part of him that he keeps hidden from the world.
When he lifts his head, there’s a silver shimmer in his irises that fades as I watch, like embers cooling. And without thinking, I reach to touch the rings hanging from his necklace.
He goes completely still.
“I love you.” I trace the outline of the bands. “All of you. Even the parts you think are too dark for anyone to love.”
“You don’t know everything,” he says, and he can’t meet my eyes. “There are things I’ve done. Things I am. Things that would make you—”
“I don’t care.” I cut him off before he can finish. “Whatever you’ve done, whatever you are, you’re mine, Logan Ashford. And I’m not going anywhere.”
His arms wrap around me so tight it hurts, his body pressing against mine like he’s trying to merge us into one person.
The boat rocks gently beneath us, and Logan holds me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear, his face buried in my neck, his tears wet against my skin.
“I’ve got you,” I promise him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His arms tighten even more.
And in this tiny cabin, in the middle of a sea of monsters, wrapped up in each other like the outside world doesn’t exist, I let myself believe that everything will be okay.
Even if it’s probably a lie.