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“I thought you were dead,” she sobbed into her palms, barely able to speak, barely able to breathe, every ragged inhale sawing through her. “I thought you were dead—I was so scared, Darien! I was so scared for you.” She hadn’t realized how bad it was—how desperately she’d needed to see him again. To know that the man who’d sacrificed so much for her was not only alive but okay. As okay as he could be in this shattered life they shared.

Strong but careful hands circled her wrists.

Loren opened her eyes, looking up at Darien through a mist of tears, as he gently pulled her hands away from her face.

The others came closer, forming a half-circle around them, voicing question after question after question. But while they’d found their voices, Loren had suddenly lost hers.

No words would ever be good enough to express herself to the man she loved. She had so much to say and no idea where to begin. But now that the initial shock of seeing him here was taking its leave, she confirmed that something was indeed wrong. Darien still looked very unhappy—she could see it in the set of his jaw. In the crease that had taken form between his bold brows. In the way his pupils seemed larger than normal, as if he were trying not to lose himself to a Surge.

And when Malakai’s voice floated above the din, the Reaper engaging with Roman in conversation, Darien’s features transformed with pure rage, his own restraints snapping like brittle glass.

He was upon Malakai faster than Loren could blink.

He grabbed the Reaper by the throat—whipping him around and pinning him to the wall with such brutal force Loren felt it in her own bones.

Shouting filled the ICU. The others tried, to no avail, to intervene.

Shadows poured into the area, spreading like smoke. Several people backed up, calling out in alarm. Loren’s heart jumped as the power threatened to fail, the lights strobing.

She sucked in a deep breath and lurched into motion. Knowing she had to stop this before there’d be no going back, she hurried across the space, heart thumping wildly in her ears,and squeezed through the group, getting closer to Darien than the others were willing.

“We had a deal!”Darien bellowed. The veins in his temples and neck were bulging, his face red with rage. “You promised me that you would get her the fuck out of here!”

“Let. Me.Go,”Malakai snarled, his eyes shining obsidian pits.

But Darien only tightened his grip. “Do you have any idea how bad that could’ve been?What we could have lost?”His voice was a deafening roar. “WhatIcould have lost?” He pushed the Reaper higher up the wall with an arm to the throat.

The lights went out. Patients screamed from their rooms, crying out for help as the entire ward was blackened by Darien’s magic.

Loren’s eyes widened as Malakai’s feet lifted right off the ground.

“SHE COULD’VE FUCKING DIED!”Darien’s voice ripped through the room.

“Darien,” Loren began. More shadows were amassing. Suffocating every last wisp of precious light. Even the dim emergency bulb that had come on by the desk was threatening to shut off. Her heart was beating so hard, she could scarcely hear herself talk,think.“Please?—”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t rip your throat out,” Darien snarled. For all the training the Reaper had, that was true fear shining in his eyes.

“Darien, I need you to look at me,” Loren tried.

He didn’t—but she swore she saw his head tilt toward her by a millimeter.

She took that as a sign to keep going.

“I need you tolook at me,”she said again, firmer now,knowing that if he was going to respond to any command it would be the oneshegave him,“and see that I am okay.”

A shift in the atmosphere—subtle, but a shift nonetheless. As if he were finally hearing her.

“Look at me,” she said again. This time, her voice did not waver.

She counted the seconds it took for the furious Devil to look at her.

One.

Two.

Three.

He obeyed, his head slowly turning toward her—jaw clenched, nostrils flared, eyes so black he looked more monster than man. He was beautifully terrifying. The most beautiful and terrifying thing she’d ever seen.