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I held her gaze, which softened from playfully annoyed into something more tender. Her lips parted, and her eyes dilated. My chest constricted as I fought to pull air into my lungs. I needed to touch her, hold her close to me. Kiss her. The way the glamoured iced-blonde strands draped across her face gave her a wildly seductive pull that fed the inner beast within me.

Before I knew what I was doing, I sat up on my elbows and rolled to one side, bringing my mouth inches from her jaw. The scent of lavender and vanilla rushed my senses, making me want to take what I felt in my tattered soul was mine, even if she wasn’t aware of it yet.

Gray didn’t breathe as she lay locked in a frozen state as if she were my prey, waiting me out.

The tips of my fingers caressed the column of her throat before they wrapped around just the slightest, applying a little pressure. Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I let out a husky chuckle in her ear. “I fucking love it when you say my name. Myrealname.” Sliding my palm from herthroat to cup her jaw, I said, “You always say it like it means something to you.”

I pulled back and met her eyes that burned with so much fire, a fire that had me hardening against her hip. “It’s always meant something to me,” she said, her voice raw and unstable as her gaze dropped to my lips.

If I didn’t return to my previous spot beside her, then I was going to fuck up everything. Pulling in a deep breath, I sat up, dropping down in my place on the hard earth. A silence enveloped us as we tried to process whatever the fuck that was between us.

“Were you one of my fangirls?Pleasetell me you were one of my fangirls,” I broke the silence at last with an attempt at humor.

Gray scoffed, her voice still shaken. “I most definitely wasnotone of your fangirls. I wanted tobeyou.”

If only she knew the truth of what I had to endure and was forced to be. “I hate to tell you this, but the persona I put on was all a lie.”

“What do you mean?”

I cleared my throat. “The valiant Chrome Freyr that everyone knew, was only a mask concocted by my endearing mother and stepfather. This is the real me.”

“Well, I assumed as much. I mean, I created my own. But no, I wanted to be powerful and skilled like you. Untouchable.”

A bitter laugh escaped me before I realized it happened. “I wouldn’t say untouchable.” The stars glittered through the swaying shadowed leaves as she seemed to process that statement. Their whispers to one another were carried by the cool, crisp breeze.

It was Gray who broke our comfortable silence. “What brought you out here anyway?”

“Just…” I said. “Just felt called to this spot for some reason. Perhaps it’s the Elemental in me.” Guilt settled in at the lie, knowing my real purpose had been to meet up with my contact.

Gray hesitated, thinking over the possibility.

I hated the acidic feeling sinking in my stomach, twisting at my dishonesty. She hadn’t earned that trust yet, seeing as only a few days ago, she wanted me dead at her hands. Some things would take time.

Gray didn’t speak her thoughts, but I could basically hear the gears turning in her mind at a high speed. Her fierce scowl was back in place, but it looked more like she was deep in thought, not murderous. I couldn’t tell if I liked that fact or not, sending my mind spinning at a high speed of its own in a direction it had no business going.

We continued to lay side by side in our separate bubbles. For how long, I couldn’t say. We were simply sharing the space together and just being—nothing more, nothing less. Lost to our thoughts and everything they could possibly mean, it surprised me how easy the companionship felt.

I reflected back on my time with Onyx earlier: how, for the first time in a very long time, I could be around him and not force a smile or a laugh. It all came naturally because I couldfeelagain. I remembered our meaningful times. I rememberedme.

The more time I’d spent around Gray, the more distant and silent the affliction’s voice grew. At last, I was granted a true sense of peace. And that alone was attributed to the girl beside me, the one I’d been saving since she was eight years old, whether she knew it or not.

The notion didn’t escape me that it was her turn now.

Her turn to saveme.

Chapter 26

Gray

“Ithink you’ll find you might actually like it here,” Chrome said as we trudged the final steps toward the long-abandoned drive of the Elemental Hollow. It’d been a stressful journey, and I was ready to settle somewhere at last. But as we reached our destination, anxiety seized me at the idea of being surrounded by people I’d been trained to kill. They’d surely know who I was, so I worried about their reception of the Kinetic King’s assassin daughter.

Chrome insisted otherwise. “They knew who I was when I first arrived. And now, they’re my family.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. The sound of our feet crunching down the long gravel drive echoed off the tree boughs. Hidden deep in the woods, the Georgia pines hugged us along the pathway. “Please forgive me for not trusting your word on this. There’re plenty of reasons why they’d want me to suffer.”

Chrome glanced at me as we walked side by side. “Gray, there’s more information you need to know. One person, specifically, has the answers.” He paused and returned his gaze to the path ahead, combing his fingers through his black hair. “He saved me. I owe him everything.”

A weight settled between us as he seemed to fall back into the clutches of his demons. I tried to imagine the horrors Chrome endured at the King’s Palace. The public abuse I had been subjected to couldn’t compare to what he must’ve gone through in private. Many of the punishments I experienced still haunted me, but gaining the notoriety that Chrome had achieved couldn’t have come without a heavy cost.