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He added, “I know she bothers you.”

She cleared her throat. “Not as much as she used to.” It wasn’t a lie. The gorgeous Lacey had bothered her a lot in the beginning—she couldn’t deny that. But she’d learned to tolerate her.Likeher, even, to a certain extent. Still, she couldn’t help but ask him, “How long did you date her?”

He didn’t react. As if he had been waiting months for her to ask him this, regardless that he’d never told her about his romantic history with the platinum blonde Devil. Thanks to rumors and her ability to read female body language, she had figured it out on her own.

That, and Jack might’ve let it slip once. In one of his signature offhanded remarks.

Darien wet his lips and took another drag, his cheeks hollowing out. Gods, she could stare at his lips forever. “Officially? Bout a year, maybe,” he mused, still completely unbothered.

The urge to ask him more questions was strong, but it was none of her business. His past belonged tohim,and him only. His years before he met her had made him who he was—had brought him to her. Every step, every decision, and yes, every relationship, too, it was allDarien Cassel.She couldn’t resent him for any of it.

So, instead she asked him, “What should I type?”

“Just say we’re stopping in Réalta.” He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray.

Her cheeks warmed. Gods, he’d already told her that. It showed how easily she was sidetracked by something so trivial.

She typed the message, sent it, and shut off the screen.

“So you’re not bothered by my ex, but you’re bothered by a random Healer you’ve never even seen before?” He was watching her now. Talking to him while he’d had his focus on the road was so much easier than this—than having his potent stare fixed wholly on her. It made her feel transparent. Vulnerable. But?—

Now that he was looking directly at her, she noticed the size of his pupils. He was fighting a Surge, which could potentially explain why he was sweating like that. She didn’t know a lot about Surges, and what she did know was only what she’d observed during her time under the Devils’ roof. But she supposed sweating could be a symptom. He sometimes woke up in the night looking exactly like he did now, but worse.

“I’m not bothered by the Healer,” she said—a bit defensively. She didn’t mean to give him attitude, it sort of just slipped out.He spared one glance for the road as they passed a semi, but otherwise kept his focus on her. As if her answer—everything she said, really—meant the world to him. “I told you, I was bothered by theafter.”

“And I told you there is no after.” What he—they—were going through put an edge in his tone as well. Not a harsh one, no. But she knew Darien well enough to detect it. “You are my present, my future, and my eternity, Loren.” The statement made her blood sing and her heart pound irregularly.

How she wished it were true. She didn’t doubt that he meant what he’d said—but they had no future together. Nothing beyond her twenty-first birthday. And gods, did that truth cut like a knife.

She drew a deep breath to ease the ache in her chest, her heart threatening to bleed out.

Darien continued. “I tied my life to yours—that should be enough to convince you, don’t you think?” He waited for a response, and when she didn’t give him one he said, “I don’t want you to be bothered by other women. You have enough shit coming at you from all angles, and if there’s one thing I can guarantee that you don’t need to burden your beautiful mind with, it’s other women. I don’t want them, Loren, I wantyou.Just you. Forever. Okay?”

She still didn’t respond. She just stared out the windshield, fighting desperately to keep her emotions under control.

Darien didn’t press her, and she was glad. If he tried, she might slip up and say something she shouldn’t say. Start another argument that neither of them would benefit from.

Or spill her secrets to him.

Theafterwould never stop bothering her, no matter how many times he reassured her. Because once they were back in Angelthene, and she figured out how to move forward with her plan, she would give him back hisafter. A future she would notbe a part of. Darien Cassel would live—that was her one and only goal right now.

“You’re not really going to kick Max out, are you?” she asked him.

Darien took a moment to respond. “No.” He sighed. “I forgave him the moment he left.” Watching him fight with one of his best friends was rough. Loren had gotten into a lot of fights with Dallas over the years, but they’d always found their way back to each other. She was glad to hear that it would be the same for Darien and Max.

A few minutes later, as her thoughts drifted back to their previous topic—Darien’s bargain, the lies, her mortality—she blurted, “Is it true?”

A beat of quiet. And then: “Is what true?”

“What I asked you at the hospital. Did you choose to give the Widow more years than you had to?” Her heartbeat accelerated.

Darien hesitated again. Briefly. And then he admitted, “Yes.”

Her eyes shuttered, her throat so tight she felt like she was being strangled. It took her a while before she could open her eyes again, and when she did she found that she couldn’t look at him.

“What, exactly, did she say to you?” she choked out.

“That you won’t live past your twenty-first birthday. And that the hour of your death could arrive sooner if you use your magic.”Hesounded like he was choking, too.