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“So?” Darien asked, keeping his voice down. He was ready to go—bodysuit on, blade of black adamant strapped to his back. Although he couldn’t use most weapons without causing himself a great deal of pain, he’d still strapped a couple to his hips and thigh, an automatic rifle fastened to his back alongside the sword. Better to have them than not. If he needed to break his hand again to save his own life or the life of one of his family members, he’d do it. Gladly.

“It’s exactly what you suspected,” Ivy said, speaking with equal quiet, her bodysuit a deep scarlet that looked like blood in the lamplight. “She’s bothered by the future and the fact that she’s mortal and you’re not.” Fuck—not again.

“How did that whole conversation go? Does she want to break up or something? What’s the solution here?” He wasn’t an idiot—he knew her mortality would pose a problem one day. But he lived in the moment in a way Loren couldn’t seem to. And he loved her too much to bear the thought of ever losing her.

Natural death was the one thing he couldn’t protect her from. And death always won.

“Of course she doesn’t want to break up,” Ivy said. “She’s just…keeping you in mind, mostly. Your happiness. Your future. She thinks she won’t be able to offer you the kind of life you deserve.” Kids, if they decided to have any—a life she was cursed to not be a part of forever.

I told you, Bandit grumbled.

Not a good time, Darien warned.

We aren’t ready for pups.

“For fuck’s sake,” Darien muttered, ignoring Bandit. He swiped a hand down his face, the material of his bodysuit scraping the bridge of his nose.

“She’s been through a lot lately,” Ivy offered. “I’m sure she’ll be back to her old self in no time.”

“Yeah, until she decides to be bothered by this shit again.”

“So let her be bothered, then. If you want my opinion, I think it’s normal for her to think about this every once in a while. You guys are opposites—it’s only natural for her to feel stuck because of her mortality.”

Darien sighed. “Yeah, but there’s no solution to it—nothing I can say that’ll make her stop thinking about it.” Nothing that would fix it. When something was making her upset, it boiled his blood, made him want to strangle whatever the problem was with his bare hands. And he hated that he couldn’t fix this. “Even if she thought breaking up was the answer, to ‘give me freedom’ or whatever the fuck reasoning she has, it wouldn’t make a difference. My fate’s tied to hers.”

Ivy gave several rapid, exaggerated blinks of shock. “Don’t be dramatic, Darien,” she scolded.

He didn’t answer.

Slowly, as silence stretched between them, her features fell. “Darien?” she bit out, her breaths thinning out. “You are just being dramatic, aren’t you?” He could almost see her piecing it together in her head—the details he’d never told any of them about his visit with the Widow.

“Am I ever just being dramatic?” Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say—the wrong time, too. But he’d kept this secret bottled up for so long, he knew it was only a matter of time before it slipped out.

Ivy’s features transformed with horror. With a shaky whisper, she asked—demanded of him, “What did you do?”

Loren felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. She couldn’t draw a breath, couldn’t even remember how to breathe.

“Tell me it isn’t true,” she whispered as she drifted into Darien’s former room upstairs, hands balling into fists at her sides. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard—he had to be lying. It had to be a lie. She wouldn’t accept anything less. “You tied your fate to mine?” She glanced between Darien and Ivy, both of them loaded up with weapons, his sister looking like she either wanted to strangle someone or burst into tears.

Loren felt the same.

She pressed, “Is that what you traded the Widow?” He’d never told her—never explained the details of the bargain he’d made to get her dog back. When Singer had died, Loren had known so little about hellsehers, the Crossroads, and the deals that magic-born people had the power to make, but she’d never believed for one second that it would be something this bad.

Darien didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. The look on his face was answer enough.

He would die the minute she did. This powerful, amazing Darkslayer, who so many people loved and depended upon, would die the minute her mortal life ended.

And the thought of that broke her heart.

She stomped forward, vision blurring with tears—and shoved him in the chest. “How could you?”

He was so caught off guard by her reaction that he stumbled. Actually stumbled.

“I love you, Darien,” Loren squeezed out around the sob building in her throat. “I love you so much, I want you to live! I want you to have everything that I can’t. I want you to live!” she said again, her broken voice slicing through the room like glass.

“And I want you, sweetheart,” Darien tried. “I want to share all of that with you.” He tried to step toward her—

She stepped back. “I hate you for doing that.” That vile word was out before she could stop it. She was angry. Crushed. She had always been more than grateful for his sacrifice, but she had never understood the magnitude of it.